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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/28310763">Smashed Creatures</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/avocadomoon/pseuds/avocadomoon'>avocadomoon</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Ready or Not (2019)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, F/M</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-12-25</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-12-25</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-10 15:35:57</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Explicit</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>26,824</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/28310763</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/avocadomoon/pseuds/avocadomoon</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>"That's the most terrifying thing about you, you know," Daniel says. "That you don't scare easily."</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Daniel Le Domas/Grace Le Domas</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>32</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>282</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Collections:</b></td><td>Yuletide 2020</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>Smashed Creatures</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><ul class="associations">
      <li>For <a href="https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lenore/gifts">Lenore</a>.</li>



    </ul></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Grace has always had a soft spot for lost causes, which is what makes her a fantastic bartender. It's such a cliche sometimes - she rolls her eyes at herself constantly - but it works, and it makes her feel better too, being kind to the sad sacks and the weirdos, giving them a little extra attention, listening to them ramble drunkenly at last call while she coaxes their addresses out of them so she can call them a cab. There are certain managers at the bar that don't like it - the kitchen manager in particular has a huge chip on her shoulder about it, rolling her eyes and huffing whenever she pokes her head out to see Grace leaning on her elbows next to a middle aged, crying drunk man - but there's not much they can do since she got promoted to shift lead. She gets the work done, she prioritizes the paying customers, and the kicker is: most of the sad sacks <em>are</em> paying customers. They run up tabs of four, five hundred dollars a night, and they tip with fifty dollar bills. This isn't some run down country bar off the highway, you understand. The cheapest dish on their tapas menu is a hummus platter that goes for seventeen dollars. The upstairs VIP patio is frequented almost every weekend by the well-to-do son of a state senator. When big concert tours come through town, the famous person involved always stops by at least once, if not more than once, during their stay. It might be a small, out of the way city (close enough to New York but still far enough not to qualify as <em>the city</em>), but Grace's bar is the coolest, most exclusive part of it - so even the sad sacks have money, and a lot of it.</p><p>It's no skin off Grace's back to be nice, is her thinking. She doesn't waste time on creeps or kids; most of the people she ends up indulging are just sad, for one reason or another. And she's made them into regulars - lucrative ones, who are keeping the downstairs bar profitable at the same time that they're funding Grace's grocery runs every other week: a state judge in his sixties whose wife died last year, the owner of a local restaurant chain currently going through a nasty divorce, some kind of tech entrepreneur who doesn't talk much about himself, but often ends up crying at the end of the night anyway, scrolling silently through his camera roll and rubbing his face until it's red. Grace feels sorry for them, and in return they give her generous tips and come back every weekend, and so what's the problem? She's fair to her servers, she lets the younger kids on staff take a crack at some of the big fish who come in and throw money around like it's going out of style. She only takes the high maintenance ones, who want Grace to stand there for twenty minutes and listen, and pat their shoulder, and put extra care into the garnish on their drinks like that's going to make them feel better somehow. And well, maybe it does. Maybe a pretty girl who smiles at them and carves a cucumber slice in the shape of a flower is just what they need to get through the night. Who's to say it isn't?</p><p>And so this is her first impression of Daniel Le Domas: just another sad sack. One night in late November, he slumps into her bar on a slow Tuesday night, stomping snow off his boots in the little hallway next to the door to the kitchen, and Grace catches sight of him as she's running a tray of appetizers and thinks, <em>shit, old money.</em> His clothes are expensive but not flashy, his watch is probably worth more than her student loan payment three times over, but he clearly doesn't take care of it. She hadn't seen what car he climbed out of - if he even drove himself at all - but she's willing to bet it's something old-fashioned, a luxury car from the movies, a Rolls Royce or an Aston Martin. A James Bond car. A Sean Connery car. A "Grace might get her rent paid just from her tips tonight" kind of car. She makes eye contact with the other bartender as he takes a seat down at the end - the depressed, drink until I pass out seat - and the understanding is instant: he's Grace's mark, and no one else's.</p><p>"Whiskey?" he orders, in a hopeful sort of voice, like he's asking for a bathroom pass from a teacher. Grace smiles at him to put him at ease, like she thinks this is funny, and pulls the list out of her apron. He doesn't even glance at it. "Whatever you recommend. I don't care."</p><p>"The Blue Label's my favorite, but it's pricey," Grace says, pouring him a glass of ice water. She strips a lemon rind, curls it with a knife, and tosses it on top as he watches her hands. There's a listless sort of look on his face, handsome yet absent, that makes Grace think she needs to be a little gentler than usual. "Wild Turkey is good too, and a good compromise. Better than the well and it won't break your wallet, especially if you want to stick with it all night."</p><p>"Blue Label then," he says, picking up the water glass and shaking it until the lemon rind is pulled beneath by the ice, swirling around in a little flash of orangey-yellow. "You look like you have good taste."</p><p>"That's what my mama always said," Grace jokes, which is probably only funny to her, being that most people don't automatically know just from looking that she doesn't actually have a mama. Something about the dry twist of his smile, though, makes her think he could probably hear the irony. "Coming right up."</p><p>He's wearing a signet ring, and a three-piece suit that somehow still looks casual, despite the obvious designer label. And he drinks like a fish; Grace has to keep checking on him, even more frequently than usual, to make sure his glass never sits empty too long. He thanks her politely each time, his tone even and impersonal (albeit slower, and more than a little slurred, as the night drags on) and at last call, he pays his tab with a gold AmEx and tips her three hundred dollars. Grace nearly chokes on her own spit when she sees the number, written darkly like he'd pressed extra hard, trying to concentrate on not messing it up. There's an imprint on the empty pad beneath the receipt from the ballpoint pen.</p><p>Grace makes good tips off these kinds of guys usually, but not <em>that</em> good. Despite the little voice in the back of her head screaming at her to just take the money and shut up, she goes back over to the end of the bar, where he's struggling with the armhole on his jacket, leaning hard against the bar for support.</p><p>"Sir," she says, and has to clear her throat three times before he blinks, his head swiveling slowly towards her with a frown, the tangled coat held against his chest. He looks like a little boy. "Sir, the tip you left me. I wanted to make sure you wrote down the right number." Grace peers at his bleary face, still frowning at her. "Sir, are you with me? Do you need another glass of water?"</p><p>"With you?" He repeats, laughing a little like she's said something funny. "What's wrong with the - with the card? D'you need a different one?"</p><p>Experienced drinker, Grace thinks. He's talking carefully and slowly, like he's measuring out each word before he says it. He spends a lot of time being drunk, and pretending he's not, she thinks. "The card went through fine. It's just, you tipped me three hundred dollars, Mr. Le Domas."</p><p>"Uh," he says, and goes back to the problem of the coat, "yeah?"</p><p>"So." Grace raises her eyebrows. "That's just - it's very generous. But you're very drunk, and I don't feel right about - "</p><p>"Oh my God," he blurts, giving up on the coat and leaning hard against the bar chair. "That's adorable. No, please, just take it." He holds up one hand, and Grace's eyes skitter over a scar on his palm, wide and ragged across his lifeline. It looks a lot like the scar on the inside of Grace's right knee, from when she'd ripped it open on a jagged wire while climbing over a fence at her first boyfriend's family farm in tenth grade. "You were very...good. Very good waitressing. I'm very rich. Three hundred seemed like a nice number. What's your name?" Grace blinks at him, taken aback by the staccato sentences, still remarkably sober-sounding considering the volume of whiskey he'd put away. "Sorry, you don't have to answer that. It's just, I made a bet with myself."</p><p>"About my name?" Grace says. He makes a slow, drunken gesture with his free hand, like <em>obviously.</em> "It's Grace."</p><p>"Grace," he repeats, nodding to himself. "Normally they have nametags, you see. Bartenders. Waitressers. Waitresses. One of the two. You know what I mean. I was wondering." He finally manages to get his arm through his coat, pulling it up around his shoulders and then sagging against the chair again, like he's out of breath. "Sorry. I ramble right before I pass out."</p><p>"Do you need a cab?" Grace asks, alarmed. "I can call you one."</p><p>"I have a driver," he mumbles. Or at least that's what Grace thinks he mumbles, as it sounds more like: <em>ah've eh 'rivr.</em></p><p>"Seriously, we have a cab service on call. It's no trouble. We want you to get home safe."</p><p>He laughs, loud and bitter. He hadn't been a talker; Grace had lingered by his elbow several times throughout the night, waiting for him to strike up a conversation. But he'd just stared darkly at a married couple at Table Four, trading kisses over their martinis, and at one point, after his third refill, had asked her politely to skip the Mariah Carey song that was playing on the speakers. "That's sweet."</p><p>Grace bites her lip, still unsure about the tip, feeling wrong-footed and not really knowing why. He's handsome, but Grace knows better by now than to get involved with customers; it never ends well. He's clearly an alcoholic, or on his way to being one. There's no logic in how her chest feels tight with sympathy, how her hands itch to help him with his scarf, to smooth out the wrinkles in his shabby, designer coat and hold his weight as he walks outside, making sure he doesn't slip on the black ice that covers the parking lot. No logic at all, in the way she feels like she already knows him, even though she doesn't. "Will you at least come back then?" she asks, because none of those things that she suddenly wants, for no reason at all, seem like smart ideas. "So I can be sure you didn't freeze to death walking home?"</p><p>He looks at her with a half smile, maybe charmed, maybe annoyed. It's hard to tell. "That's sweet too."</p><p>"I'm a sweet girl," Grace lies. She waves the receipt pad at him. "Plus, you tip well. You should come back. We like guys like you. We'll remember what you drink."</p><p>He laughs then, less bitterly this time. "Sure," he slurs, waving a clumsy hand at her. He trips as he aims himself towards the door, wincing as the overhead lights turn on at last call. He's a little less handsome in the fluorescents, maybe, but not in a bad way. It makes him look more like a regular person, Grace thinks. "G'night and g'luck. Grace. I'll remember that."</p><p>Grace smiles warmly at him as he leaves, and doubts it. This is only the first thing that she's wrong about.</p><p> </p><p> </p><p> </p><p> </p><p> </p><p> </p><p>Her first guess is that it's a bad breakup. He comes in on occasional Tuesdays, that eventually becomes occasional Tuesdays and Thursdays, until he becomes a regular, at least one night a week, if not both. He never drives himself, but he sometimes pays for Ubers for the other patrons, which makes Grace feel a little more endeared towards him than she should, maybe. He never turns into a talker, but he keeps glaring at happy couples, rolling his eyes and grumbling. So that's her working theory, until she manages to get a little chitchat out of him one night, a couple months in. She hopes he doesn't think she's hitting on him; she's always been a little awkward about asking people personal questions. Probably because she doesn't like answering them herself.</p><p>"Married? Me? No. Fuck no. Never," he says. He's told her his first name by now, which also makes Grace feel foolishly endeared. <em>Daniel.</em> Not Dan, or Danny, he'd clarified. Daniel. A Biblical name, she thinks despite herself, twelve years of Catholic school coming back once again to haunt her sensibilities. She thinks it suits him. "What about you? Don't tell me you're single. You're way too charming."</p><p>"I was seeing someone recently," Grace says, comfortable with telling him this because of the casual, unattached way he'd asked it. He doesn't stare down her top or flirt, if anything he seems completely ambivalent to her presence most of the time - bemused by her conversation, and a little friendlier at the end of the night at last call, but still impersonal, detached in an odd way. For some bizarre reason, this makes her feel more comfortable in his presence than she's ever felt in the company of a man before. This is probably not a great sign. "It didn't work out."</p><p>"Find a better guy," Daniel says. He's fascinated by her skills with her paring knife, asking for garnishes whenever she has time to indulge him. She's started to work to impress him, Googling for ideas in-between shifts. She's carving a little goldfish out of an orange peel right now, and he's grinning, watching her do it with his chin propped in one hand. "Or girl? I don't know. You don't have to tell me."</p><p>"Guy," Grace says with a smile. He does that too - qualifies his questions with <em>you don't have to tell me,</em> like he feels like he's prying. "It was my fault, actually. He wanted to get serious and I didn't."</p><p>"My point stands," Daniel says. "There had to be a reason. Am I wrong? You were listening to an instinct. I respect that."</p><p>"Nah. I just didn't like him enough," Grace says, finishing her goldfish and hanging it on the side of his glass with a flourish. He gives her a little golf clap, and then snaps a picture of it on his phone. "But he wanted to move a little fast, I guess. Maybe that was the reason."</p><p>"Let's go with that." Daniel toasts her with his highball before taking a long drink. Grace very purposefully does not look at the long, pale line of his throat. "You'll find the right one. Just make sure they have money. What are the warning signs again? Too reluctant, and they're married. Too eager, and they like weird shit in bed, right?"</p><p>Grace laughs, which is another not-great sign. She can't remember the last time she laughed and meant it with a customer. "Nailed it."</p><p>"Knew I remembered something from my cruising days."</p><p>"Cruising," Grace repeats, and laughs again. He has that same dry, bemused look on his face that emerges whenever he feels comfortable enough to chat with her - like his very existence here, at this bar with her, is ironic in some way. Grace has started to think about that look at night in bed, right before she falls asleep, lazily touching herself and wondering what he'd be like, if he would talk a little bit more freely if he was naked, if he was inside of her, if she had his cock in her mouth. A curl of warm heat always sits low in her stomach, somewhere in the vicinity of her common sense, on nights like this when he talks back to her, grins at her jokes, drinks a little bit less than usual. "Is that why you don't want to get married? Don't want to be tied down?"</p><p>"Yeah, that's it," he says, with a darkly bitter twist that makes it obvious that's not it at all. "Where'd you meet him? Your ex."</p><p>"College," Grace says. Two years out, and Grace hasn't managed to figure out how to use her stupid fucking creative writing degree. She's applying for real jobs as an exercise in self-punishment, at this point. "He was one of my professors. Maybe that's why he wanted to move so fast - he wanted to make all those ethics hearings seem worth it."</p><p>Daniel chokes a little on his drink, then slams it down on the bar and laughs so loud he bends over in two, his head hanging down next to his knees.</p><p>"I'm actually not kidding," Grace says, grinning ear to ear. "I almost got expelled."</p><p>"The more I learn about you, Grace," Daniel says, pulling himself up by the back of the empty seat next to him, "the more I like you."</p><p>"Thank you."</p><p>"I also feel like I should fist bump you."</p><p>"We can fist bump," Grace says, holding hers out. He makes a big production of it, lining up their knuckles, performing the entire ritual in slow motion, with a big flourish at the end. It's such a nerdy embellishment, so at odds with his rumpled trust fund personality, that Grace is even more charmed despite herself. "We were together for almost two years. He wasn't all that older than me - fresh out of grad school, you know. Looking back, they probably only made such a big deal out of it because I was technically one of his advisees."</p><p>"Doesn't make you any less cool, just so you know," Daniel says. He holds up a hand when she goes to take his empty glass away for a refill. "No - it's fine. I think I'm done for the night."</p><p>Grace raises her eyebrows, surprised. She realizes a beat too late that it's probably rude to let it show on her face. "It's early still. You want to switch to something else, sober up a little before your limo ride home?"</p><p>"I actually, ah," Daniel says, looking at his stupid-fancy watch. "I'm meeting someone, so. I am, thanks to your excellent bartending skills, at the perfect level of drunk to get through it. So for that, I thank you."</p><p>"Hot date?" Grace says, feeling obvious.</p><p>"My brother's in town." Daniel says this with a certain weight, like this is a sober occurrence. Grace's bad breakup theory instantly vanishes, replaced by a bad family theory that makes much more sense in retrospect. "I'm supposed to meet him for dinner at Four Horsemen. You ever been there?"</p><p>Has Grace ever been there. Eighty dollar entree, Michelin starred Four Horsemen? Hah. "Can't say I have."</p><p>"Overworked flank steak. And the chef's an asshole. But Alex likes it." Daniel shrugs. "I'd invite you, but I can't have you falling in love with my little brother. It's a pride thing."</p><p>Grace laughs in surprise, a short burst of humor that feels a little too loud amongst the quiet, Thursday night crowd. "Good thing I don't fall in love. With little brothers, or anyone else." It's a true statement, something that Grace has never actually said out loud before, although she's thought it almost a million times.</p><p>For some reason, this makes Daniel go still and silent, his hand freezing on his wallet. He looks at her for a very long second, his expression sharp, while Grace blinks back at him unsurely, working hard against the instinct to walk the statement back. But it's true, so she doesn't. He's smart, much smarter than the rest of her sadsacks, and he'd see through her anyway. She gets the feeling that he sees through everything, sometimes. He has a cutting sort of intelligence, a lazy sharpness that feels like a dull, unsharpened knife. Dangerous, if he ever mustered up the energy to use it.</p><p>"Me neither," he finally says, and Grace feels time start to move again. He grins a little, down at his wallet as he pulls out his credit card. It feels like something's changed, Grace thinks, as he hands it over. Their hands brush, his thumb touches her wrist. Her face feels like it's on fire, there are butterflies in her stomach. "What's your last name, Grace?"</p><p>"Don't have one," she says, hoping desperately that she's not blushing, keeping her eyes steady on the computer as she runs his card. "Just Grace. Like Cher, or Madonna."</p><p>"Classy." She waits for him to say <em>you don't have to tell me,</em> but he doesn't, raising his eyebrows at her as she turns back with his receipt. "Are you bullshitting me, or do you really not have one?"</p><p>"Yes and no," Grace says. She feels reckless, her heart in her throat, like she's drunk driving, speeding down a highway at a hundred miles an hour. "It's Jones."</p><p>"Your name is <em>Grace Jones?</em>" he asks, pausing mid-signature. "Like - the singer?"</p><p>"Yeah. I was an orphan," she says, still reckless, "abandoned at a hospital when I was a newborn. The nurses named me, but they didn't know my mother's surname, so they just made that up too. For a while I thought maybe whoever chose it was a fan? But more likely they just picked one at random."</p><p>Daniel's face is neutral for a weird moment, before it splits again into a grin. "That's...also kind of cool. You're very cool, Grace."</p><p>She snorts. "Thanks." She takes the pad back from him, the pen tucked neatly into the binder, and glances only perfunctorily at the tip. Always two zeroes, but the first number varies night to night. "Anyway, I guess it doesn't really feel like mine. I used my foster family's last name in high school, but we had a falling out when I moved away for school so we don't talk anymore. So - yes and no."</p><p>"Yes and no," Daniel repeats. He tilts his head at her. "You know mine."</p><p>"Since the first night, yep."</p><p>"Did you Google me?"</p><p>Grace pauses, trying to discern his mood, or the motivation for that question, but his face is dry and blank, as always. "I mean, obviously I did. Mr. Monopoly."</p><p>Daniel laughs. "Close, but not quite. 'Hasbro' is practically a curse word at my father's dinner table."</p><p>"Understandable. Everyone says they like competition but nobody really means it."</p><p>Daniel's face does another weird thing, but he brushes it off, shrugging into his coat. The same shabby, expensive one he always wears. It makes Grace think of aging opera singers, or deposed royalty - faded luxury, ill-used and mistreated. "I would Google you, now that I know your last name, but I get the feeling I wouldn't find much."</p><p>"Oh, you'd find plenty. She was great in A View to Kill. And they made a killer documentary about her last year."</p><p>"But nothing about you," Daniel says. He shakes his head, checking his watch again. "You are something, huh? I gotta run. Listen, what days do you work next week?"</p><p>"Uh," Grace says, startled. "It depends on why you're asking."</p><p>"Because I'm asking," Daniel says with a shrug. He looks bored, almost uninterested in her answer. But maybe Grace is starting to figure out how much of that is just...surface level defense. A deflection, solidly in place even before anyone has bothered to look.</p><p>"I think I have Monday and Wednesday off."</p><p>"Monday works," Daniel says, to himself. He raps his knuckles on the bar, already turning away, towards the door. "Okay. G'night and good luck."</p><p>"Monday works for what?" Grace asks, her spine tingling. He shrugs again, doesn't answer, saluting her with two fingers as he ambles away. She stands there for a long time after he leaves, feeling weird and exposed and excited and very, very stupid - clutching the pad with his receipt and ridiculous tip in both hands, swallowing over and over until she feels like she can walk and talk like a normal human again. When she finally makes her way back into the kitchen, the grumpy manager - Tess, hates Grace's guts for reasons undetermined, sleeping with Hal the sous chef - takes one look at her and rolls her eyes dramatically.</p><p>"Fuck off, fuck off, fuck off," Grace mutters, under her breath, which only makes the barback look at her weird, and the kitchen staff give her a wide berth for the rest of the night, which is just as well. She doesn't really feel like chit chat anymore, if she ever really did.</p><p> </p><p> </p><p> </p><p> </p><p> </p><p> </p><p>For about a year now, ever since she graduated, Grace has been spending her mornings off at a coffee shop down the street from her apartment, working on job applications or short story attempts or query letters (just to list a few of her futile attempts at post-university literary engagement). It comes as a surprise/not-surprise that on this most recent Monday, she looks up from her black-coffee-two-sugars to see Daniel shouldering his way into the lobby, his hair dusted with snow, wrapped in the same whiskey-stained scarf he always tosses over the back of his chair at the bar. Grace closes her laptop with a snap and watches him join the line, eyeing her out of the corner of his eye with a look on his face that looks more triumphant, almost goading, than anything else.</p><p>"Fancy meeting you here," he says dryly, wandering over in his loose-limbed way with a cup of something iced in one hand. Who orders iced coffee when it's minus ten degrees outside? "This seat taken?"</p><p>"I mean," Grace says, and shrugs expansively. He dips one shoulder at her like a thank you, and slides into it. "This is monstrously weird. You do know that."</p><p>"I like that. 'Monstrously weird.' You are a creative writing major, huh?"</p><p>In a more sensible version of the universe, one where Grace didn't do things like break into her high school gym to smoke weed with her foster brother's girlfriend, or sleep with her professor just to try it, or let homeless people use her bathroom sometimes, Grace would be weirded out by this. She'd get up and leave and ask Mark, the 6'3" bouncer at work, to make sure Daniel gets shunted upstairs to the VIP bar from now on instead of the downstairs one where she works. But this is not that universe. "Did you do a background check on me or something?"</p><p>"That is exactly what I did. Did you know there are four other women named Grace Jones who live in New York?"</p><p>"No, I did not," Grace says. She watches him through narrowed eyes as he settles in, taking off his coat, stabbing his straw into the lid of his drink. He's wearing slacks and a button-up that look very similar to what he'd been wearing at the bar the other night, and she'd think he'd spent all weekend in them if they weren't obviously fresh, ironed and sharp-edged and recently dry cleaned. "Are any of them hotter than me?"</p><p>"I didn't see pictures of them, Grace. That would be <em>invasive</em>."</p><p>She snorts at him.</p><p>"One of them was a piano teacher," he says, a smile hiding in the corner of his mouth, "and I thought, 'nah. Probably not.' The other works for a bank. Also a no. The third was drawing social security checks, so I figured she was either retired or you were into defrauding the government, and honestly, I'm pretty sure you'd be a lot smoother about it - "</p><p>"Social security checks?" Grace scoffs. "Risk jail for what, two hundred bucks a week? I make more than that on a lunch shift."</p><p>Daniel looks askance at her, still smiling slyly. "Exactly. And the fourth was a Republican." He shrugs and takes a long drink of his coffee.</p><p>Grace slides backwards in her chair, cradling her - sensibly hot - coffee against her chest. "What kind of background check tells you where I hang out on my days off?"</p><p>"A very expensive one."</p><p>Grace thinks about it for a second. This is just so very stupid. "What do you want from me?"</p><p>"I dunno. A few different things." Daniel slides backwards too, matching her pose, and their ankles knock together beneath the table. "I like you."</p><p>"Okay," Grace says cautiously.</p><p>"I'd like to take you to bed."</p><p>Grace chokes on nothing, at the bluntness. "What, right now?"</p><p>He shrugs again. "Whenever you want. However you want to go about it. You want to go on a date? Dinner, movie? Whatever."</p><p>Grace frowns, feeling the beginnings of real unease creep in, although it's not a wary feeling. More like a sinking feeling. "That's romantic. 'Whatever.'"</p><p>"I don't do relationships," Daniel says casually, like they're chatting about the weather. Like this is a totally normal, functional way to proposition someone. "I think you're beautiful. I think you're funny. I think you're kind to me because I pay you hundreds of dollars to do so, but you also just seem like a kind person, which is unfortunately very attractive to me. I can't date you like a normal person would. I can't give you anything a normal man could. But I could give you some things no one else can. I have more money than I could ever spend in a lifetime, Grace. I could spend a lot of it on you, if you want."</p><p>Grace feels like she's been dropped, very suddenly, into a dime store romance novel with some extremely questionable power dynamics. "That sounds a lot like something that is functionally illegal in thirty-five countries," she says.</p><p>"That's not what I mean," Daniel says, his face suddenly sharp, the fog of disinterest falling away instantly into what Grace suspects is his more natural personality: smart, too smart for his own good, observant, a little mean. It's like an SAT question: Grace's kindness is to Daniel as Daniel's mean-spirited intelligence is to Grace (extra credit answer: unfortunately, very attractive). "I won't pay you for that. That's not an expectation, one way or the other. You tell me what you want, and I give it to you. That's all."</p><p>"You literally just said, to my face, 'I could spend a lot of money on you,'" Grace says. "<em>On</em> me."</p><p>He grimaces. "Bad phrasing. I - " He shakes his head, setting his drink down next to her laptop, carefully arranging it so it doesn't dislodge any of her cables. For some reason, this tiny, almost-nothing consideration makes Grace's shoulders relax, just a little. "Look, I'm not very good at this."</p><p>"Oh really," Grace says dryly.</p><p>"I just mean to say," Daniel says hesitantly, with the measured way of talking he has when he's very drunk, "that I like you, and I want to spend more time with you. But I can't…<em>date.</em>"</p><p>Grace waits for him to continue, to provide some kind of explanation, but nothing comes. He just sits there, looking at her a little sadly, like he's expecting her to say no. His beard is overgrown, moreso than usual, like he's skipped shaving a few mornings in a row. He's wearing his signet ring backwards, twisted around on his middle finger. His eyes have dark circles underneath them, set so deeply into his face they make him look much older than he really is.</p><p>"So," she says slowly, leaning forward to rest her elbows against the edge of the table. She puts her coffee cup down next to his, and watches him watch her hands, tracking her movement silently, his shoulders tense. "What does that look like? What <em>do</em> you expect?"</p><p>"I don't know. Nothing. Whatever you want."</p><p>"That's a non-answer."</p><p>"It's the truth." He rubs his beard. "I could take you somewhere. Is there anywhere you've always wanted to go? A restaurant you like that's too expensive? A museum, a play?"</p><p>Grace thinks about her bookmark bar on her Chrome browser, and the little corkboard in her apartment where she pins up cut-out photos of European cities she wants to visit someday. There's a revival of Pygmalion on Broadway that she wants to see but can't afford. Her car is making a weird noise. She's always wanted to try eyelash extensions. All of these things pop into her mind with an immediacy that scares her a little bit.</p><p>"You can," Grace says hesitantly, "take me to dinner. I don't care where."</p><p>Daniel sighs in subtle relief, his expression melting into something a little less sharp. He was nervous, she realizes with a little thrill.</p><p>"But first you have to tell me why you can't date," Grace says.</p><p>He's quiet for a long moment, rubbing one thumb against the inside of his other wrist, like he's trying to soothe an ache. Grace imagines him doing that to her inner thigh, and swallows hard.</p><p>"My family is very complicated," he says. "There's a lot of expectations. Unreasonable ones. I don't want to put a partner through that."</p><p>"Fair enough," Grace says quietly, waiting another beat to see if he'll continue. Typically, he does not. "Alright. I'm allergic to peanuts, so no Thai food."</p><p>"Noted. That actually wasn't in the background check, you know. If that makes you feel better."</p><p>"It doesn't, but thanks," Grace says dryly. "Can I run a background check on you? Fair is fair."</p><p>"Sure, but most places you find on the internet are a scam," Daniel says casually. "They don't give you anything you couldn't find yourself on a deep Google dive. I can give you the number of my guy."</p><p>"I probably couldn't afford your guy," Grace says wryly.</p><p>"Well, I didn't want to assume," Daniel says, absurdly, like this entire interaction isn't a batshit collection of unhinged assumptions. He pulls his phone out of his shirt pocket and hands it to her. "Will you put your number in there? No dick pics. Swear to God."</p><p>He doesn't have a lock on it. Not even a password. Grace laughs in deep incredulity. Fucking rich people. "A dick pic isn't even the most annoying thing you could send me, Daniel." He types in her cell number, saving it under <em>The Funniest, Most Gullible Girl U Know.</em> Then she sends herself a text that says, <em>am I a serial killer?</em></p><p>"You've never said my name before," he says thoughtfully, taking his phone back. He doesn't look at it, sliding it back into his pocket without a glance.</p><p>"Really? I haven't?"</p><p>"Not my first name."</p><p>"I've known what it was since the first night," Grace says. "It was on your credit card, so."</p><p>"I was waiting for you to use it," Daniel says, and for some reason this is the sexiest thing anyone has ever said to Grace, even delivered as it is, in Daniel's eerily absent, half-ironic tone. "I thought maybe you were taken - you know, dating someone. But then you said you were single."</p><p>"I am," Grace says, for lack of anything better.</p><p>"So then I figured, maybe."</p><p>"You could've just said all this to me at the bar," Grace says. "The stalking was a bit much."</p><p>"Well, you're still a stranger," Daniel says. "Technically speaking. And like I said. I have a lot of money."</p><p>Grace smiles, despite herself. "Do I look like a golddigger?"</p><p>Daniel considers this, as if it were an actual question, and not a weak, joke attempt at flirtation. "No," he says after a moment, "and I've known plenty."</p><p>Grace feels the ridiculous urge to thank him, which feels a little bit too far, considering everything.</p><p>"Are you free tonight?"</p><p>"Yes."</p><p>"Then I'll text you. We'll meet somewhere." Daniel picks up his drink, which has sweated considerably, leaving a wet ring on the table next to her laptop. "I feel like I should go. Like sitting here, watching you write - that's awkward, isn't it?"</p><p>"That's probably a good idea," Grace says. Space is a good idea, yes. Also she needs to go out and get something nice to wear. Shit.</p><p>"Okay. I'll go." He nods, but stays sitting, just looking at her with a funny smile on his face, an expression Grace has never seen on him before. Recklessly, Grace smiles back, her stomach jumping. <em>I'm gonna suck his cock tonight,</em> she thinks, and knows it's true. She's never wanted anyone so immediately, and so fiercely before. Stupid - yes. But Grace is gonna do it anyway. "It was nice to see you, Grace."</p><p>Grace just laughs incredulously at him as he leaves, sliding out of the chair and sauntering out of the shop, casual and rich and handsome and the weirdest person she's ever met. Who the fuck <em>is</em> he?</p><p> </p><p> </p><p> </p><p> </p><p> </p><p> </p><p>SMS 9:34 AM<br/>
Am I a serial killer?</p><p>SMS 10:07 AM<br/>
I don't think you're gullible.</p><p> </p><p> </p><p> </p>
<p></p><div>
  <p>SMS 10:17 AM<br/>
maybe I think I am</p>
</div><p>SMS 10:18 AM<br/>
Maybe you should take a better look at yourself</p><p>SMS 10:21 AM<br/>
That was condescending</p><p> </p><p> </p><p> </p>
<p></p><div>
  <p>SMS 10:24 AM<br/>
don't worry your heart was in the right place</p>
  <p>SMS 10:24 AM<br/>
i think</p>
  <p>SMS 10:26 AM<br/>
do you have a good idea for a restaurant?</p>
</div><p>SMS 11:14 AM<br/>
Do you like French food?</p><p> </p><p> </p>
<p></p><div>
  <p>SMS 11:17 AM<br/>
not really</p>
</div><p>SMS 11:21 AM<br/>
Thank God. Let's get empanadas</p><p> </p><p> </p>
<p></p><div>
  <p>SMS 11:22 AM<br/>
YES</p>
</div><p> </p><p> </p><p> </p><p> </p><p> </p><p> </p><p>Two hours before they're meant to meet, downtown at an Argentinian restaurant that Grace usually only eats at for special occasions, a courier hand delivers a file of paper to her door. Grace's roommate, Nikki, yells over the sound of the hair dryer for him to leave it, but he doesn't, he waits and keeps knocking until Nikki rolls her eyes and stomps off to answer, and then he refuses to leave them with her because he needs Grace's signature to be allowed to hand them over.</p><p>"Jesus," Nikki says, as Grace signs and initials - in <em>three different places</em> - for a messy stack of manila file folders, held together with a grubby rubber band. "Is someone suing you, or something?"</p><p>"No," Grace says. All Nikki knows is that Grace has a date, it's with someone she met at work, and she needs help with her bangs. The entire story is unnecessary. "Just a work thing. You remember I told you about the politician that's throwing a birthday party for his mistress upstairs? It's probably that. He wants the whole staff to sign NDAs."</p><p>This is true, but Grace had signed one two days ago, an uncomplicated, straightforward affair that had taken all of thirty seconds after she clocked in for the breakfast shift. Nikki eyes the folder, then shrugs, pulling Grace back towards the bathroom by her shirt collar. "Alright, whatever, Cinderella."</p><p>Not the first time someone's given her that nickname, but it feels particularly poignant now, dressing up for a date with a mysterious rich guy who could probably afford to buy her entire apartment building. Grace tosses the file on her bed in what she hopes is a casual manner, willing herself not to stare at it while Nikki finishes her hair, then sneaks it into the bathroom as Nikki retreats to answer a phone call from her girlfriend and tears it open, somehow already knowing what it is, and preemptively impressed at the excellently executed joke.</p><p>Or is it a joke? A deep background is what it is, on Daniel Le Domas, everything from photocopies of his high school grades (excellent scores in math, terrible ones in class participation) to his passport number to a list of his offshore assets to a photo of him as a baby, posed like a Victorian orphan, in an embarrassingly frilly nightgown, big brown eyes and a wild head of curly black hair. Grace sits on the edge of the toilet and bites back hysterical laughter, flipping through a wildly intimate account of his life - God, there's his fucking <em>social security number,</em> right fucking there - and finds a note at the end, scribbled in a messy hand that she recognizes from months of receipts.</p><p><em>Grace - hope this makes you feel better. Looking forward to tonight. Daniel.</em> It's written in purple ballpoint pen. For some reason, this is the detail that tips Grace over into laughter.</p><p>"You were a cute kid," Grace says, coming up behind him at the restaurant. She's startled him, she notices with triumph; he'd dropped the menu in surprise and jerked his head around. Serves him right. "But a C minus in sex ed? Not an auspicious start, Daniel."</p><p>"Do you know what sex ed consists of at boarding school?" Daniel asks, recovering quickly. "They wanted me to write an essay about how abstinence would bring me closer to God."</p><p>"I went to Catholic school," Grace says, sliding into the booth next to him. "So yes, I'm familiar." She picks up her menu, pretending to study it. She already knows what she wants to eat, though. "But of course you already knew that about me."</p><p>"I did."</p><p>"I aced sex ed. Just saying. It's not that hard to bullshit 500 words about how you're going to save your precious flower for your God-fearing future husband, you know."</p><p>"I'm allergic to bullshit," Daniel says, and Grace glances up, getting her first real look at him. He's wearing a vest over a dress shirt and yes, Tom Ford trousers, and he still hasn't shaved. Grace presses her thighs together beneath the table. "You look incredible."</p><p>"Thank you," Grace says. "I bought this dress two hours ago at Goodwill."</p><p>"It works for you."</p><p>"I thought so."</p><p>"I didn't get to see your legs though," Daniel says. "You snuck up on me. I really like your legs."</p><p>Grace breathes evenly, in and out. She keeps her eyes on the menu, her voice light. "Oh?"</p><p>"One time at the bar, you were wearing a skirt. The blue one. I couldn't stop staring at you in the mirror. I saw the tattoo on your ankle."</p><p>"I got that in college," Grace says. She has a flower, just a small reasonable college tattoo, a black and yellow sunflower above her ankle bone. She looks up over the menu at Daniel, who is looking at her keenly, one hand on his chin and the other on his wine glass. "You can touch my legs, if you want." She stretches out her feet, sliding them next to his. The cuffs of his pants brush the bare skin above her heels. "We're sitting close enough."</p><p>Daniel takes a deep breath, and drops his hand beneath the table. Grace holds her breath until she feels it, sliding up her shin beneath her dress, coming to a warm stop on her knee. He squeezes her kneecap, rubbing his thumb along the curve of it, and Grace's stomach drops out like she's on a fucking rollercoaster.</p><p>"So what's good here?" he asks. "I haven't been here in ages."</p><p>"Everything's good," Grace says, a little breathless. "What kind of wine did you get?"</p><p>"White," Daniel says, reaching out with his free hand to pour her a glass. His other hand stays on her knee, heavy and meaningful. "I took a guess."</p><p>"Well, it's your first miss. I usually like red better."</p><p>"Try this one. It's dry. Good with spicy food," Daniel urges, and watches her closely as she takes a first sip, smiling with his eyes. "One of my favorites, actually."</p><p>"You like white better?" Grace asks, closing her eyes briefly at the taste. "Dry" had been an understatement. It's sharp enough for her to like it, with a faint citrusy aftertaste that makes her mouth water.</p><p>"I'll drink anything," Daniel says wryly. "I'm sure you've noticed."</p><p>A conversation for another day, if they ever have it, Grace thinks. She puts down her glass and leans into him a little, pressing her knee further into his grip. His fingers tighten in response, curling possessively around the curve of her knee. "Do you like spicy food?"</p><p>"Yeah, sure."</p><p>"Then I know what to get," Grace says. "Let me order for you. Trust me, you'll like it."</p><p>Daniel sucks in a sharp breath, then grins. "Historically when people have said that to me, I have not, in fact, liked it."</p><p>"Well, I'm different," Grace says. "I'm a kind person, remember? Let me order for you, Daniel." She takes another sip of wine, smacking her lips. His eyes fall to her mouth, hungry. "Would I steer you wrong?"</p><p>"You know," Daniel says with a slow but genuine smile, "I actually kind of doubt it."</p><p> </p><p> </p><p> </p><p> </p><p> </p><p> </p><p>Daniel likes the food. He eats three empanadas and drinks only one glass of wine, a choice that feels pointed and deliberate. Grace makes dirty jokes all night that feel much more obvious now that his hand is on her thigh, not her knee, and they talk about college, about books, about music. Daniel listens to experimental rock, obscure stuff from the 70s that Grace is mostly unfamiliar with, and jazz. He went to Cornell too - almost an even decade before Grace's attendance there - and studied finance, for a degree he does not use.</p><p>"The family empire," Daniel says, toasting the air with his water glass. "Waiting for me in the wings."</p><p>"You're not working in the meantime?" Grace asks neutrally, deftly avoiding the touchy subject. He keeps referring to it bluntly, telling her without telling her, which she appreciates. The least she can do is let him unfurl the story on his own time.</p><p>"I don't dream of labor."</p><p>"Don't you get bored?"</p><p>"Yeah," he says, off-handedly, like this doesn't matter. "Would you work, if you didn't have to? Of course not. No one would. Think of everything you could do, if you had my kind of money. You could write."</p><p>"Is that what you do? Write?"</p><p>"No," Daniel says, dragging his knuckles up her thigh, rough against her skin. Grace shivers violently, gripping the table with one hand. "I'm more into video games. RPG tabletop stuff. Dungeons and Dragons, the whole thing."</p><p>"Liar," Grace says breathlessly. She doubts he's ever played a board game in his fucking life, especially with how he talks about his family. The look on his face when he'd said <em>the family empire</em> had only confirmed this assumption for her.</p><p>"No, it's true," Daniel says lowly, his voice dipping into a lower register as he watches her eyelashes flutter. "I cosplay. I go to, what's it called. The Comic Con."</p><p> </p><p>"Fuck off," Grace says, hearing her voice come out much higher than normal. She presses her legs together, trapping his hand between her thighs and he blinks, spreading his palm out flat against her skin and squeezing hard. She bites back a groan. "Although - you know, actually, I could see that one. You kind of look like the alien guy from Star Trek."</p><p>He blinks at her again. "Leonard Nimoy?"</p><p>"Sure."</p><p>Daniel grins, nudging her knees back apart with one of his. Grace holds her breath again, but his hand moves downward, not up, his grip going back to her knee. "Is this the part where I ask you to come outside to see my spaceship?"</p><p>She laughs. "We have to pay the bill," she says, feeling heady and flushed, reckless like it's her last night on earth.</p><p>Daniel takes out his wallet, tossing his AmEx on the table. "They'll mail it to me," he says, and slides his palm around her shoulder. "Come on. Can you walk?"</p><p>"Fuck off," Grace says again, and then ruins her credibility by tripping as she climbs out of the booth. Her knees are weak; it's embarrassing. Daniel slides a bracing arm around her waist, grinning, and doesn't say a word.</p><p>Outside, there's a smoking patio that's mostly deserted, and a long black car that has to be there for Daniel - for <em>them,</em> Grace thinks giddily - with tinted windows and those blank license plates they use on government cars and professional funeral services. It's raining, heavy drops that feel closer to sleet, and Grace has Daniel's coat shoved messily over her shoulders, her own wrap hanging from his elbow like a scarf. She feels the sort of weird, surreal adrenaline she gets when she doesn't know what she's doing.</p><p>"Do you smoke?" Daniel asks. Grace shakes her head. "Me neither. Here, or in the car?"</p><p>She's not really sure what he's asking, even though she also sort of does, but she's cold. "Car."</p><p>"Okay." He keeps his palm on her lower back, and opens the door for her. There's a partition between the backseat - wide seats, already heated, Grace nearly yelps when her almost-frozen ass hits the leather - but Daniel raps his knuckles on it as he pulls the door shut, and it rolls down halfway, revealing a heavyset man with thick eyebrows in a denim jacket. "Hey, Pete. Can you take us back to my place?"</p><p>"Sure thing," says the driver, who is apparently Pete.</p><p>"Hi, Pete," says Grace. "I'm Grace."</p><p>"Nice to meet you, Grace." Pete has a heavy Long Island accent, and a gold earring in his left ear. It occurs to Grace that Daniel could possibly be in the mob, or otherwise criminally inclined. It also occurs to Grace how fucking stupid it is that this is the first time that's occurred to her.</p><p>"Don't flirt with my date, Pete," Daniel says, and Pete grins. "Pete's a ladies man. Five wives in ten years. Don't get conned, Grace."</p><p>"Okay, I'll try," Grace says, wiggling a little on the seat. For some reason the heated leather is really doing it for her. Sexual awakenings truly never stop coming, in adulthood.</p><p>"Twenty minutes with traffic, Danny," Pete says. "You want the partition up?"</p><p>Daniel looks at her, then back at Pete, who laughs out loud. "Yes. Yeah, I think so."</p><p>"I'll try to drive slow," Pete says, and the screen goes back up. Grace shrugs out of the coat, feeling the car pulling out of the parking lot slowly. It barely even feels like they're moving.</p><p>"He called you <em>Danny</em>," Grace says incredulously.</p><p>"Do you have any idea how many bars he's dragged me out of? He can call me 'sugar tits' if he wants to," Daniel says. "Speaking of, I think there's champagne back here somewhere."</p><p>"Oh, the whole cliche, huh? I feel like we're driving home from Prom."</p><p>"Don't remind me," Daniel says. "I puked on my date's dress. Good thing I didn't really like her."</p><p>"Now that's romantic," Grace says, reaching out to tug on his shirt collar brazenly, urging him closer. Daniel slides over, lurching into her a little as the car turns left, his eyes on her mouth again. "I don't want champagne."</p><p>"Okay," Daniel says.</p><p>"I want you to kiss me," Grace says.</p><p>"Okay," Daniel says again, and leans in slowly, watching her face, giving her time to pull away. Grace doesn't. She looks at his mouth, his wide bottom lip, the little divot in his chin, and meets him halfway, kissing him softly, closed-mouthed. She can feel him holding his breath, and pulls away after a second, dizzy.</p><p>They stare at each other for a moment, caught. Then Grace says, "is that it?"</p><p>"Your lead," Daniel says, almost a murmur.</p><p>"Okay. Again." He stays for a bit longer this time, sucking her bottom lip into his mouth. Grace's knees shake. When he pulls away this time, he looks dazed. "Okay. Good work, team."</p><p>He laughs, reaching out with one hand to brace against the door next to her head, as the car turns again. Grace can feel them speeding up - on the highway, she thinks. "Yeah, I feel like we're making progress."</p><p>"Can you," Grace says, clearing her throat as her voice fails her. The seat is a little too warm, and it's making her stomach do swoops and tumbles, the closeness of his body and the heat of the seat having a double-tap claustrophobic effect that is, somehow, weirdly hot. "Can you just, can you touch me. Anywhere. God, Daniel, I'm sweating, I - "</p><p>"Okay, yes," he murmurs, soothing, and pulls her dress up with his free hand, touching her thigh again experimentally, still watching her face. "Can I kiss you again?"</p><p>"Yes," Grace says, leaning back against the headrest. Her nipples feel tight, her cunt is throbbing. She feels like a maiden in a story, wanting to lie back and be overcome, overheated and wound up, lazy and indulgent with arousal. "Kiss my neck."</p><p>Daniel does, leaning over her with his hand still braced, sliding his hand up to her hip beneath her dress, the fabric bunching beneath his hand. He scrapes his teeth down the bumpy parts of her throat, stopping halfway and angling back up to pull her earlobe into his mouth, sucking on the base of her earring. Grace moans, sliding downward in the seat. Her legs fall open, one knee falling against the cold plastic of the door. Daniel slides right past her pelvis and presses his knuckles against her abdomen, right beneath her bellybutton, then flattens his palm against her skin and slides it around to her lower back, pulling her upwards so he can hike her dress up the rest of the way. Grace lifts her hips to help, and moans again when her bare thighs hit the warmed leather, almost painfully hot to the touch.</p><p>They're in a weird position, half crouched in the seat, Daniel practically hanging off and held up only by his hand against the door. Grace laughs breathlessly as he tries to kiss her breasts through her dress and almost falls, unbalanced by another turn of the car.</p><p>"Never got the hang of this. Sex in cars. I'm better in limos," Daniel says, readjusting his braced hand, carefully avoiding leaning too hard against her with his weight. "Can I eat you out? Jesus, I want to taste you."</p><p>"I wanted to do that," Grace says mindlessly, and he sucks in another sharp breath and kisses her, much rougher than before, using his teeth in a way that feels both playful and like a gauntlet being thrown down. "Yes," she says, turning her face sideways as he presses kisses to her cheek, her eyelid, the crown of her hair. She can't feel much of his body in this awkward position, crouched like he is over her in the seat, but she can see the bulge in his pants in the dim light from the passing headlights.</p><p>"Keep your dress on," Daniel says roughly, readjusting again so he can get down on his knees on the carpet. Grace laughs breathlessly at the grimace on his face - it's a nice car, enough room to kneel down but it's still not a <em>limo,</em> and his legs are just, stupidly long - and he makes a face at her. "What the fuck did he say? Twenty minutes?"</p><p>"More like, what, fifteen now?" Grace says. She lifts her hips again, helping him slide her panties down her legs. He shoves them in his back pocket, and then grabs both of her hands and slides them up to her own breasts, encouraging her. She squeezes once, then does him one better, slipping the dress down over her arms and pulling her tits out of her bra, thumbing her nipples and arching her head back against the seat.</p><p>"Fuck, Grace," Daniel says, palming her thighs and watching. "Get them wet." Grace licks her thumb and circles her nipple, pinching it a little the way she likes. "Yeah, like that."</p><p>"Twelve minutes," Grace says, and Daniel mutters a curse beneath his breath, pulling her legs apart and hitching one of her knees over his shoulder. "Fuck. Fuck, it won't take much. Jesus Christ, these <em>seats</em>."</p><p>"Hot, right?" Daniel says, and then licks her slit from bottom to top, pausing at the top of her labia and sliding his tongue slowly down the divot at the very top, right above her clit. Just <em>millimeters</em> away, really. Grace grinds her head back against the seat and moans. "Tell me if you don't like something. You can pull my hair if you want."</p><p>"Yeah," Grace says mindlessly, threading her fingers through his hair. He makes a noise, a low grunt, and presses the thigh not on his shoulder against the seat, burying his face back in her cunt and pressing inside of her with his tongue. Grace makes an embarrassing noise, deep in her throat, and pulls his hair. He grunts again.</p><p>Time stretches and bends, and Grace digs her heel into his upper back and pushes his head where she needs it, egged on by the noises he makes, deep low sounds that almost vibrate against her pussy - or at least, that's how it feels. Daniel is clearly very experienced at this - not that she's particularly surprised there, with that excellent pussy-eating beard he has, which also happens to be a big plus, especially when he figures out how much she likes it when he shoves his scratchy chin against her clit. Grace moans so loud she instantly and wildly thinks, <em>Pete's gonna think I'm a total slut,</em> but Daniel grabs her hand as it starts to fall away from his head and presses it back against his scalp, sliding his thumb inside her along <em>with</em> his tongue this time, and Grace fists her hand in his hair and presses her hips to his face, feeling wild. Feeling reckless and a little stupid, and so turned on she can't think, and then Daniel presses down on her inside walls with his thumb, and sucks on her clit hard at the same time like he's pulling her in two different directions, and Grace's vision goes black at the edges as she comes. Must be a record, surely. She definitely didn't think he could do it in less than fifteen.</p><p>The car is still running, starting and stopping gently, like he knows what's happening in the back seat, which he probably does. Grace slides her hand out of his hair, rubbing his scalp in apology as she catches her breath, and he laughs, sitting back on his haunches and wiping his face with the back of one arm.</p><p>"That was amazing," he says earnestly, bending over slightly to kiss her knee. Grace laughs weakly, feeling her hair clinging wetly around her temples. Her tits are still hanging out, and she feels sweaty and gross all over. The thought of getting back into her dress is not pleasant. "You okay? You need some water or something?"</p><p>"I mean, yeah," Grace says, swallowing through a dry throat, "but I think we're almost here." The car is slowing down, and outside the window there are streetlights lighting up in even intervals, gently filling the backseat with their midnight, yellow-white glow.</p><p>"Here." Daniel helps her tuck her breasts back into her dress, hitting the button for the window to crack it a little. The rush of cold hair makes Grace gasp, realizing for the first time how overheated she is. Her face must be bright red. "You can wear my coat again. Don't worry about Pete, he's a good guy. He'll stay in the car, he won't look."</p><p>"God," Grace mutters. She's usually much less of a girl about this kind of thing. "Don't tell me you live in a fucking penthouse, or something."</p><p>Daniel laughs, reaching up on his knees to kiss her face. It's weirdly sweet, his lips against the bridge of her nose, and Grace angles her face to catch his mouth, tasting herself on his tongue. "Just an apartment. Will you come up? Stay the night?"</p><p>"Yeah, of course," Grace says.</p><p>Daniel touches her face with his palm, tracing her eyebrow with one finger. "I want," he says, and then stops short, swallowing. Grace opens her mouth, pressing a kiss against the scar on his palm. She wonders where he got it. She wonders if he'd tell her if she asked. She wonders if she's in over her head.</p><p>"What?"</p><p>"I want to fuck you," he says after a beat, with that careful tone again, like he'd wanted to say something else. Grace blinks at him. "I want to tie you to my bed and never let you go."</p><p>"You can do one of those things," Grace says, her mouth quirking upwards. "Three guesses which. First two don't count."</p><p>He smiles wryly and kisses her again, pulling gently at her lower lip. The car is stopped by now, the engine idling. She wants a glass of water. She wants to be tied up, maybe. She wants to see him naked.</p><p>"You don't have a roommate, do you?" Grace says, the thought occurring to her belatedly as she wobbles her way out onto the pavement. She pulls the coat closer around her shoulders. Her makeup must look horrifying.</p><p>Daniel snorts a laugh, keeping one hand on her elbow as he waves at Pete through the driver's side window, rapping his knuckles on the hood. The car flashes its brights and then pulls away silently. "No. I'm rich, remember?"</p><p>"Ah, right. I'd forgotten that thing about you that you were very subtle about."</p><p>"Well, I like people to feel at ease around me," Daniel says.</p><p> </p><p> </p><p> </p><p> </p><p> </p><p> </p><p>It would be easy, too easy, to say that it's just because the sex is good. But it's also because he makes her peanut butter and jelly pancakes the next morning. A surprising, and very charming, flavor combination, Grace discovers.</p><p>"I used to make these for Alex," he says, in a much softer tone than he usually uses when referring to his family. "He always wanted peanut butter and jelly sandwiches. Couldn't convince him to eat anything else. So I came up with this for breakfast. I used to sneak real fruit inside, like this." He tossed some sliced strawberries on the pancake, glued in place by the peanut butter, and then topped it off with the jelly-covered pancake on top, folding it over like a sandwich. "I was so deathly afraid, for the entire first decade of his life, that he would get scurvy and die. I think I saw that on a TV show."</p><p>Grace eats the pancake sandwich, smiling at him in her underwear, in his big fancy kitchen. She learns several things, from this morning: one, that he loves his brother. Two, that despite being very rich, Daniel was clearly responsible for his brother's care on a fairly regular basis when they were children. Three, he is not that close with his brother anymore, for reasons that are probably the same ones driving him to semi-alcoholism in her bar twice a week. And four, he didn't really mean it when he said he didn't want to date her.</p><p>He gives her clothes to wear - men's clothes, that Grace makes work, thankfully he is not the sort of rich dude that keeps brand new women's clothing in his house for one night stands - and drives her to work. He texts her several times over the course of the day, continuing a conversation they'd started over coffee about the new Nicole Kidman movie neither of them particularly want to see. He takes her out several days later, swing dancing at a 1930s-themed party that turns out to actually be a fundraiser for the governor, who interrupts them mid-appetizer to clap Daniel hard on the back and say, <em>Daniel, you son of a bitch, good to see you! How's your old man?</em> Daniel shoots her a panicked look and seems to be attempting to disappear into a nearby potted plant, so Grace grips his elbow, makes some polite conversation, and then gives him a whole metric ton of shit for it afterward.</p><p>"You're so <em>connected,</em>" Grace says, riding him in the back of the car, Pete doing his discreet Pete thing again and taking the corners in a very considerate, gentle manner. Her knees keep slipping into the crack between the seats, and the seatbelt is pressing uncomfortably against her leg, but it doesn't really matter. "Who else do you know? Are you friends with Mark - fuck - Zuckerberg, or - "</p><p>Daniel slaps her ass, and then pulls her down on his cock and buries his face in her tits. He mumbles something embarrassed sounding and lifts his hips up, bracing his feet against the floor, and Grace makes a high pitched sound, feeling slightly impaled, scrambling for purchase against the ceiling and wondering if it's actually possible to feel a dick in your lower back, or if she's just imagining things.</p><p>"Is that a yes?" she says breathlessly, as they catch their breath against the seat, this time thankfully non-heated.</p><p>"I solemnly swear," Daniel says, laying one hand on her bare breast and holding the other palm up like he's swearing on a Bible, "that I have never met the founder of Facebook."</p><p>"Mm. But you know the governor."</p><p>Daniel cringes so hard she can feel him physically flinching where he's pressed up against her side. "He knows my father."</p><p>"Sure. Your dad is so rich and powerful, he's friends with Andrew fucking Cuomo."</p><p>"You know," Daniel says crisply, pulling her leg up across his lap. They're still on the highway, so they have time. He hasn't even pulled his pants back up yet. "I don't really want to talk about my father right now, believe it or not."</p><p>"When I Googled your family," Grace says slyly, running her fingers through his hair and scratching his scalp, "I found a photograph of your grandfather shaking hands with FDR."</p><p>Daniel sighs deeply and covers his face with his elbow.</p><p>It doesn't really feel real, and it definitely doesn't feel like a hook up. It feels like they're <em>dating,</em> or at least starting to date, which is exactly the thing Daniel told her he didn't do. They meet for coffee on Monday mornings, they stay up late after dates and sex-after-dates and talk late into the night. He makes her laugh, he asks questions and listens like he cares about the answers. He sends her check-in texts when they haven't seen each other for a few days, sweet little messages that say things like <em>hey, thinking about you this morning</em> and <em>I started that book you told me about and guess what! I hate it!</em> He stops coming to the bar, because he says he doesn't want her to feel weird around her coworkers, but sometimes he stops by with Pete to pick her up, on really cold nights when the snow is bad, or on the rare Saturday when she's stuck working a closing shift and she knows he worries about her driving home alone.</p><p>If it hadn't been for the dossier he sent on himself, Grace thinks she would probably be warier. But for all his muscle-flexing about his money, he's somewhat of an open book himself. He's shy, naturally reserved, sarcastic but easy to please, and a total and complete <em>pushover</em>, which would be annoying under any other circumstances, but considering how he'd approached her, it actually makes Grace relax significantly.</p><p>So what was the point? A few weeks of fairly intense, affectionate dating, and Grace still can't make sense of his approach. If he was trying to intimidate her, he clearly didn't have the balls or inclination to follow through on his Indecent Proposal schtick, and now that she knows him a little better it's actually sort of funny that he'd even tried it. He doesn't send her exorbitant gifts - although he makes plenty of jokes about it - and he doesn't demand any weird things in bed. He takes her to fancy parties, but he likes to edge around the corners of the crowds, and he doesn't seem interested in showing her off, or dressing her up as arm candy. Daniel is a lot of things - wickedly smart, lazy, hedonistic, a bit moody - but suave? Creepy? Intimidating? No. He can't even tie her wrists up in bed - with a <em>chiffon scarf</em> for fuck's sake, she could've yanked her hands out any time - without apologizing half a dozen times afterward.</p><p>But as quickly as this all happens, it disappears even faster. Grace has been ghosted before - she's no stranger to the signs - but it's notable with Daniel mostly because it's as bizarre as their conversation in the coffee shop had been. It begins with a nightmare - a regular occurrence, she's discovered, although he's usually pretty adept about hiding it from her - and the next morning, over coffee on his balcony, he tells her he has to go home for a few days and she won't be able to get in touch with him.</p><p>"Family stuff," he says, with a tone that makes the phrase sound ominous. "They don't like it when I have my phone on me, so. I won't be able to call or text very much."</p><p>"Your parents aren't a big fan of phones at the dinner table, huh?" Grace asks, mostly rhetorically. They've had long conversations, personal ones, but mostly about her life, not his. Daniel is also very adept at making her feel like he's answering her questions while not actually telling her anything at all. "That's okay. When will you be back?"</p><p>"A few days," he repeats vaguely. "Not sure."</p><p>"Alright," Grace says, wary mostly because of the look on his face. He's green around the edges, not meeting her eye. Even though the words sound like he's blowing her off, his demeanor and body language tell a different story. She's starting to realize that this is another thing he's very good at, <em>and</em> not very good at, at the same time: lying. "Daniel, are you alright?"</p><p>"Fine," he says tensely. He looks at her quickly, still not managing to completely match her gaze, and downs his lukewarm coffee like it's a shot of tequila. "Just - you know. Family. I'm not looking forward to it."</p><p>"Can't say I relate to you there."</p><p>"Right, sorry. But actually," he laughs, loud and bitterly, "I'm not. You should be careful what you wish for, there. One day you might get it."</p><p>That actually stings, a little. Grace messes with one of the scones on her plate to cover up whatever embarrassing, hurt look might be on her face. "Thanks," she says dryly. "Just what a girl wants to hear, Daniel. 'You don't deserve a family.' Very romantic."</p><p>"That's not what I meant," Daniel says, irritated. "You don't deserve <em>my</em> family. Is what I meant."</p><p>Grace looks up at him and finds a hesitant look on his face, his brow heavy-set with what might be anger or worry or something in-between, she can't really tell. "Daniel," she says slowly, brushing the crumbs off her hands. This might be a mistake, who knows. She's scared off enough boyfriends before to know that emotional intimacy isn't always the best way to keep a guy interested (usually, she's found, it's the quickest way to <em>get rid</em> of a man. Go figure). But she doesn't want to be the kind of girl who's always debating every sentence, every conversation, on the scale of <em>how much actual affection can I expect before he leaves me?</em> It feels dishonest, not to mention masochistic. If Daniel really meant what he said that first day, that he doesn't date, then she might as well know now. She's getting to the point where her instincts are telling her something very different from what the facts look like on paper, and if she ever wants to move out of this weird limbo, it's going to have to be her who initiates it. "I don't know if you picked this up yet, based on the <em>everything</em> about me, but I haven't exactly had a very easy life."</p><p>Daniel blinks at her. "I - yeah," he says, sounding blindsided.</p><p>"I had bad foster homes. People who smacked me around and shit. I spent most of ninth and tenth grade in a group home." Grace clasps her hands and tries to look reasonable, but he can probably hear the tremor in her voice anyway. After all these years, she wishes she could talk about it more casually. She hates how it makes her feel, weak and alone, <em>vulnerable</em> in a way she doesn't think she is, at least not anymore. "I'm not saying it was all awful. I had good people in my life, and I had it a lot better than some other kids I knew. I was a little blonde, white girl, you know. People don't talk about that part of it, but it affects how everyone treats you. I was pretty lucky, all things considered."</p><p>"I'm not really sure where you're going with this," Daniel says, but at least he doesn't look like he's about to puke up blueberry scone all over the breakfast table anymore.</p><p>"I'm trying to tell you that you might be surprised about how much I would understand, if you ever wanted to talk about it." Grace takes a deep breath and looks back down at her plate, her stomach twisting with nervousness. "It might help. And I care about you, that's all. We don't have to call it anything, one way or the other. But I'll listen, if you want to tell me."</p><p>The silence is immediate, and stony. Grace dares a look up, expecting a lot of things - discomfort, awkwardness, the look of a man who has suddenly realized he tripped and fell into a relationship and now feels like the walls are closing in on his head. But instead of any of that, Daniel looks <em>horrified.</em> His face is pale, he's gripping the arms of his chair with white knuckles. Grace's mouth drops open, more at the shock of the great emotion on his face more than anything else, but before she can say anything he's up and out of the chair, pulling away from the table so violently the plates rattle on the glass surface.</p><p>"Daniel," Grace says, loudly in her surprise, but he brushes past roughly, stumbling over the bottom rail of the sliding patio door. She watches, gobsmacked, as he tears right through the living room and out the front door, leaving it sitting ajar. He doesn't even grab his wallet on the way out.</p><p>Grace sits there for a few moments, mostly because she's so taken aback she's not sure what to do. He's left his cell phone on the table and Grace picks it up, unsure if he's about to come storming back in to start a fight, or apologize, but after a few minutes it becomes increasingly clear that he really did just walk right out of the apartment and leave.</p><p>"Seriously?" Grace says, out loud to nobody. "What the fuck?"</p><p>Grace lingers in the apartment for a couple hours, still in a state of wary disbelief, but Daniel doesn't return. He gets a few texts on his phone, but most of them are from unsaved numbers, and Grace doesn't feel right about reading them, even though his phone is unlocked. (Another thing that had simultaneously confused and put Grace at ease: he handed his cell phone over to her all the time, with no password or biometrics or anything, completely uncaring about what she might see or read. Not that she <em>would</em> snoop, but his blind trust had been another tick in the "does actually want to be my boyfriend" column.)</p><p>She does scroll through his photo roll though, feeling half-guilty about it but still curious, telling herself that the pictures are a compromise - no emails, no texts, but there's something sort of intimate about seeing the various ticket stubs, buildings, screenshots of various doctor's appointments (he's in...therapy? He's in <em>therapy</em>!) and, for some reason, ads on the sides of subway platforms that he finds interesting enough to take pictures of - and finds herself nearly brought to tears at a folder he'd named simply "Grace," that contains a series of photos of the fancy garnishes she'd carved for him at the bar. The first one saved is from months ago - the orange peel goldfish. Grace sets the phone down hard, covering her hand with her mouth, her stomach churning.</p><p>Downstairs, the doorman - nice guy, definitely on Daniel's payroll rather than the building's if Grace's suspicions are correct - tells her that Daniel had left on foot, without taking his car. Grace asks him hesitantly if there were any messages left for her, and the guy shakes his head.</p><p>"I can tell him you were looking for him," he offers, in a careful, just this side of neutral tone, "or you can leave a message for him yourself. If you write a note, I can make sure he receives it."</p><p>Grace is not really sure how that would go over, honestly. She'd prefer to contact him directly, but his phone is upstairs on the kitchen counter where she'd left it, carefully plugged into its charger, and she's not a hundred percent certain when - or if - he's going to return to look at it. But leaving a note with one of his <em>staff</em> - that doesn't sit right either. "Could you - I don't know if you're allowed to do this," she says, tapping her nails nervously on the counter, "but if he comes back, could you contact me? It's just that I'm worried about him."</p><p>"I cannot, ma'am," the doorman replies, and he seems genuinely sympathetic.</p><p>"Right," Grace says, biting back a few choice curse words. "Of course that's a - a privacy thing. Sorry."</p><p>"I am diligent about delivering messages," he continues though, just this side of neutral again. "If you wish to leave a note, I promise you, he will get it."</p><p>Grace chews on her lip, and then nods. Handing over a pad of paper and a pen, the doorman looks politely away, down at his computer, while Grace nervously scrawls a note she hopes is neutral enough not to upset Daniel even more: <em>Hey, sorry if I upset you. Let me know if you're okay. You can text me if that's easier. Grace.</em> It doesn't really feel like enough, but it's the best option in front of her, at the moment. And she's used to making do, to say the least.</p><p>Of course, he does not text. Grace goes back home with a slowly-widening pit in her stomach that only gets more painful the longer she doesn't hear from him. She sends him messages - as neutral as she can manage to be, unobtrusive, trying to keep the door open - but since he has read receipts on she knows he hasn't opened them. This could mean any number of things, and none of the possibilities make her feel any better.</p><p> </p><p> </p><p> </p><p> </p><p> </p><p> </p><p>Obviously she has an idea of what's happening. The Google results for the Le Domas family were at turns awe-inspiring and frightening, not to mention intimidating. Tony Le Domas is known in the business world as a cutthroat negotiator, his claim to fame being the ruthless takeover of half a dozen smaller, family-owned businesses that were eventually absorbed into the Le Domas entertainment empire. It's not just the line of board games - they own a chain of arcade-themed restaurants in Louisiana that are in the process of expanding to six other states. There's a chain of movie theatres in the upper Northwest. They have proprietary copyright on a bunch of different video games, several of which are on all the top lists of most streamed and bestselling. They have a streaming platform whose user base has exploded over the past five years, quickly and easily overtaking its competitors and is now the default software for most online gaming.</p><p>Grace cares about all of this shit only as far as how it affects Daniel, and by association herself, and none of it adds up to anything good. The public photos of the family speak volumes: Becky and Tony Le Domas, shellacked into perfection with frozen smiles, holding their sons' shoulders tightly like they're holding them still. Alex, the one Daniel loves most, always looks dodgy, as if he's about to pull away, his face half-turned from the camera. A younger Daniel, standing stoically in the middle, dead-eyed. And the sister, Emilie, usually slumped next to her mother, her face pinched and resentful. Of every picture Grace had found, she'd thought: <em>God, it looks like the family photo in a haunted house movie.</em> The portrait above the creepy mantle, the dead patriarch who's about to appear mid-act and start dropping bodies. The ghost children, the harridan mother. Even their PR statements sounded ominous.</p><p>The headlines she'd found hadn't made her feel any better, either. Daniel is ostensibly estranged from them - he'd said as much to Grace, or implied it anyway - but only in the sense that he'd moved to New York and left his position with the family business. He works at a non-profit now, balancing the books for an inner-city scholarship fund that Becky Le Domas has taken potshots at in various different interviews. Emilie is married to a former child TV star who is a regular commentator on the <em>Chelsea Lately</em> show, whose sense of humor leans hard on the "disdainful insult" side of the scale. Both he and Emilie get quoted on gossip blogs all the time, and even Grace's shallow Google search turned up half a dozen quotes with passive aggressive, sneering insinuations about both Daniel and Alex.</p><p>She isn't stupid. She's seen the signs, recognizes them from kids she knew at the home, or encountered here and there at hospitals, schools, county offices, soup kitchens. He doesn't like loud noises, goes tense when his back is to a door. He has nightmares he doesn't talk about. He'd tried to scare her off initially, but then immediately backed off when it didn't work and is now simply avoiding her instead. He refuses to have sex with the lights on - Grace first suspected that he was insecure about his body, but now knows it has to do with the scars on his back he doesn't like her to touch - but he can't sleep in a completely dark room either, he always has to leave the bathroom door cracked, or a TV playing.</p><p>She gets it. Boy, does she get it. Her question now is: is it worth it? Grace doesn't have any illusions about this kind of thing; you can't fix people just by caring about them. And not every survivor wants to be helped. But if Daniel doesn't, if he wants to sink into the trauma and never come out again - why did he find her at the coffee shop? Why initiate a relationship, ask her questions, show her he cared? He could've just been another one of her sadsacks - interesting and polite and a little extra generous with tips - but instead he looked up her name, paid for a background check, hatched a plan that was both a dare to take him seriously <em>and</em> a warning to frighten her away. And he put <em>effort</em> into things - he remembered things about her, spent time with her outside of the bedroom, showed her attention that required more personal attention and care than simply buying expensive gifts to dazzle her into infatuation.</p><p>Grace has spent most of her life sneering at the things that most people took for granted - turning her nose up at anything to do with home and family and love, in a ploy to convince herself that she didn't want it. In college, she was confronted with this lie in several ways - mostly through her string of boyfriends, all of whom had been variations on a theme: mama's boys, wholesome backgrounds, lots of siblings. She cringes now to think about it - how transparent she was. If it had worked out with any of those guys, she would've bought into it hook, line and sinker - happily showing up at Mr. and Mrs. Whoever's family Thanksgiving with a homemade casserole in her hands, blinking her big Orphan Annie eyes at her in-laws: <em>please let me in. Please accept me. Please love me.</em></p><p>But it didn't work out with any of those guys. Not even with the professor. Maybe that was for the best. As an aimless, underemployed post-grad, Grace feels more at home in herself than she ever has before: alone, yes, but coming to terms with it. She doesn't know if she wants Daniel's baggage rattling around in her emotional trunk, banging up against her own shit-filled suitcases. She's endeared by him, intrigued by him, was immediately hooked by the weird, off-kilter way they'd started - and yes, he gives her stellar orgasms, also a big factor - but taking <em>this</em> on? The eldest son of a family that was once described by a New York Times writer as <em>if the Addams Family were publicly traded and voted Republican</em>?</p><p>She's not afraid of a challenge. And her cynicism about finding it aside, Grace does believe in love. She believes that everyone needs warmth and hearth in their lives, no matter what kind of person they are, where they come from, or if they completely deserve it or not. She's survived worse heartbreaks than an eccentric, rich, sorta-boyfriend with childhood trauma who yanks her around for a couple months and then bails. But still, deep down, maybe...she hopes. If he were to text back tomorrow and ask her out for coffee to explain everything, she can't deny that her first reaction, despite everything, would be relief.</p><p> </p><p> </p><p> </p><p> </p><p> </p><p> </p><p>Life goes on, as it often does. At least for a couple months. Grace gets promoted to the VIP lounge for exactly three shifts, punches a rich kid in the throat for groping her, and then promptly gets demoted back down to the bar, which suits her just fine. She gets a couple poems published. Applies for jobs in publishing, writing, editing, administration. One phone screen - at an indie house that pays less than the fucking bar - but no interviews. She doesn't hear from Daniel.</p><p>It's Pete she sees, believe it or not, on a slow Monday night at the bar. Grace tenses up the second he walks inside, thinking she's about to see Daniel loping in behind him in that loose-limbed, sleepy way he has, but Pete just lifts his baseball cap at her silently from across the room, and settles down at one of Keri's tables. Grace watches him warily for the first hour or so he's there, waiting for him to approach, but he just orders an appetizer, takes off his jacket, and watches the Oscars coverage on the large television screen mounted above the window.</p><p>Surely he can't be that interested in what Emma Stone is wearing. Grace takes her dinner break early, buys herself a plate of sliders and a beer from Keri, and plops down next to him at the table.</p><p>"Did he send you to check up on me?" Grace asks, without preamble, before shoving a sandwich in her mouth. She only gets thirty minutes for dinner and a girl's gotta get fed.</p><p>"Yeah," Pete says casually, like that isn't some absolutely bonkers shit to do, "but I didn't want to freak you out. So I figured I'd just come say 'hi.'"</p><p>"Hi," Grace says flatly. He nods at her again, still preoccupied with the television. "Is his phone broken? It's been almost two months." He never did open her texts. She called a couple times too, with the intention of leaving a voicemail, but his message box was full. She has, so far, resisted the urge to Google.</p><p>"He had to go home for awhile. He just got back in town last week."</p><p>"So?" Grace says, taking a long swig of beer, her elbows on the table. She's been swinging between pissed off and worried ever since he'd left her there that morning, and she's getting pretty sick of it. The emotions are twice as intense than what she would normally feel over what was, by all accounts, a very short and weird fling. "Still on him to reach out. He literally ran away from me. And you can tell him that no, sending you doesn't count."</p><p>"I don't think he expects much, to be honest," Pete says. Then he frowns. "How does that stay up?"</p><p>"What?"</p><p>"That dress. See, look. Before it cuts away - " he nudges her arm and points, and Grace turns her head to see Priyanka Chopra in a sleeveless gown. "I get the kinds with the uh, what do you call it, the invisible straps. But that one she's wearing doesn't even have a back to it. It looks like she's wearing a piece of cardboard."</p><p>Grace turns back slowly to look at him, incredulous. "There's tape," she says blankly. "Like, boob tape."</p><p>"What?" Pete says, aghast. "Like what, actual <em>tape?</em>"</p><p>Grace shrugs, and takes another huge bite of her slider. Pete shakes his head, amazed.</p><p>"Look," he says, turning away from the TV, now that it's on a commercial break. Grace drinks her beer and raises an eyebrow at him. "He's not doing great right now. He got a new phone so he wouldn't have to read whatever you sent him. Nearly gave himself alcohol poisoning couple weeks back. Spent a night in the hospital."</p><p>Grace sets down her beer bottle carefully, her stomach dropping out. "That's - "</p><p>"Not your fault, nothing to do with you," Pete says, waving his hand, "just thought you should have some context, that's all. He wanted me to give you some money - " he holds up a hand, stalling Grace's outrage before it even begins. "Not like that. Just - he means well, that's all. He feels bad, so he tries to throw money at the problem. It's how he was raised."</p><p>Grace breathes in and out, slowly, the food and beer and anxiety mixing into an unpleasant hurricane in her stomach. "How long have you worked for him, Pete?"</p><p>"About ten years. Little less than that, maybe. I'm strictly New York, though. He doesn't want me down in Louisiana, with his family." Pete's tone is so loaded on that last sentence, it might as well have a DUI.</p><p>"I'm not an idiot," Grace says. "It's not like I didn't pick up on what's going on."</p><p>"Well, he's never told me any details, either. But when he came back this time - " Pete struggles for words for a moment, rubbing his jaw. "I've never seen him like that. Whatever it was this time, it was bad."</p><p>Grace's heart aches, despite herself. "I'm not his girlfriend."</p><p>"No. He doesn't want a girlfriend," Pete says. "But he's a good kid. He needs someone." The absurdity of calling a thirty-seven year old man like Daniel a "kid" doesn't seem lost on him; he grins sardonically at Grace, shrugging lightly. "Girlfriend, friend, whatever. I've been driving him now for a decade - that's longer than my own daughter's been alive. Can't help but care about him, at least a little. So I give a shit whether he lives, or drinks himself to death - sue me. You know?" He shrugs again, helplessly. "What he wanted me to do was drive you home tonight, make sure you were doing alright, and give you this - " he reaches down to his jacket, hanging from the back of his chair, and pulls an envelope out of the pocket, showing it to her briefly before sliding it back in. "Don't know how much is in it. I warned him you'd probably take it as an insult, but I'm pretty sure that's why he did it. So."</p><p>Grace shakes her head, laughing incredulously. "He's such an asshole," she says, and to her dismay, she can hear the affection in her voice. She tries to harden her heart again, but it's impossible - she's already thinking about it. Daniel in the hospital, blind drunk, almost dead. Daniel in that family photo, staring at the camera in blatant misery. Daniel with his sad eyes, and warm hands, and the hint of a Southern drawl that emerges when he's being particularly sarcastic. That look on his face, that morning, when she'd showed her cards and told him, in not so many words, that she gave a shit about him too. "Has he done this before? With other women?"</p><p>"No," Pete says immediately. He smiles briefly. "He was engaged once, but it didn't work out. Dumped her a few days before the wedding. That was when he moved out here, right before he hired me, so I don't know many details. He goes out with women occasionally, but it was always casual. Women at bars, you know. Until you."</p><p>Grace snorts, taking another pull off her beer. "I am, literally," she says, "a woman at a bar."</p><p>Pete shrugs, noncommittal. The Oscars preshow comes back on, and his attention diverts again. It's either an extremely committed bit of affectation, or he really is invested in the E! Hollywood red carpet coverage.</p><p>There are so many reasons to be wary. The powerful breadth of his family, his drinking, the clumsy moves towards possessive behavior (still a red flag, Grace thinks, even if he can't seem to follow through on them). He's almost fifteen years older than her. He told her, to her face, that he doesn't want a relationship. And yet. <em>Well</em>, Grace thinks, still shoving her food in her mouth, <em>everyone says I have a thing for lost causes.</em> She washes down the last of the food with her beer, reaching into her calf boot for the lipstick she keeps for touch ups, right next to her ID and cell phone and the pocket-spray of mace Nikki gave her for Christmas last year.</p><p>"May I?" she asks, gesturing towards the envelope of cash, still hanging halfway out of Pete's jacket pocket. Pete raises his eyebrows, surprised, but nods. "Don't worry. I'm not gonna actually take it," she tells him, plucking it out with two fingers. She tosses it on the table and reapplies her lipstick, making sure to smear it darkly over her lips, and then presses a big, smudgy kiss right on the flap, garishly red against the cream-colored paper. She hands it back to Pete, who laughs a little and slides it back into his jacket, as gingerly as he can. "You can give that back to him. Tell him I said something mean. You can come up with something better than me, probably."</p><p>"Not so sure about that," Pete says, with another dry laugh. He holds out his hand for Grace to shake, gripping hers firmly. She smiles at him sunnily, squeezing hard like one of her foster fathers had taught her. <em>Men won't respect you if you shake their hand like a woman,</em> he'd said. <em>Make them remember you. Always squeeze hard, no matter who.</em> "Do you really want a ride home? It's no trouble. I get paid for the whole night either way."</p><p>"Nah," Grace says. "But the nachos are on me. You're a good guy, Pete." She pats his shoulder as she gets up.</p><p>He salutes her with two fingers. "I'm rootin' for you, slugger," he says. Grace skips a little, as she walks back around the bar to punch back in. That actually did make her feel a little better.</p><p> </p><p> </p><p> </p><p> </p><p> </p><p> </p><p>Over the course of the next several weeks, Daniel tries multiple times to get her to accept the money, through a series of Venmo and Paypal transactions that Grace takes great delight in rejecting. This culminates finally in a check he mails to her apartment in a gigantic box wrapped in Happy Birthday wrapping paper (she has to unwrap three subsequent boxes inside, in various festive patterns, to get to the actual check) with <em>Please? I know you need it for your car,</em> scribbled on the memo line. She mails that back to him in torn up pieces, in an envelope with a <b>:-/</b> emoji drawn on the flap in red Sharpie.</p><p>Is this flirting? Does this count as flirting? Grace is unsure. She's more amused than she is insulted, at this point. And it's not like he's wrong about her car, at any rate. She <em>knew</em> Pete would rat her out - he probably saw the sorry state of her windshield in the parking lot that night.</p><p>It's a Google Alert that swings her back to worried - a sad little thing she'd set up when Daniel had first ghosted her, that Grace has gone back and forth with herself about deleting a million times. A blog by a hip internet writer on Alex Le Domas, who just got a sweet gig as a writer on some sort of sitcom out in LA, and is apparently engaged to a C-list actress he met at a charity function six months ago. <em>A 'Stratego' Engagement,</em> the article is entitled, and seems to be implying that the whirlwind courtship is some sort of publicity ploy to boost their respective careers. Grace is fairly certain she recognizes the girl from some sci-fi show - and she was apparently once very loosely attached to one of the members of One Direction, so the engagement is very newsworthy to the sorts of people who spend way too much time on Twitter. Grace wrinkles her nose as she scrolls through the pictures; Alex is exactly the sort of wholesome-looking, puppy-ish kind of dude that Grace herself would've flung herself at, once upon a time. (Working as a bartender had, for better or worse, cured Grace of quite a few naive assumptions about the habits and patterns of the male race.)</p><p>Explains a few things, Grace thinks. So the next time Daniel attempts to Venmo her the money, she accepts it, which she assumes surprises him badly enough that he actually picks up the phone when she calls.</p><p>"Ah, shit," he says, apparently realizing his mistake. Grace cackles at him loudly and threatens to send the money back to him in rolls of pennies if he hangs up. "No, I mean - I wouldn't. I mean - shit, I can't believe you're actually <em>calling</em> me."</p><p>"I can't believe you tried to <em>ghost</em> me, you stupid motherfucker," Grace says. "And then <em>wimped out</em> on it. You're a piece of work, Daniel."</p><p>"Believe me, I'm aware," he says dryly. He sounds a little drunk, which isn't surprising, but it's also the middle of the afternoon, which is concerning. Despite herself, Grace's worry spikes a little more. "I'm a piece of shit, Grace. I'm sorry."</p><p>"I don't need that," Grace says dismissively, leaning against the side of her bed and stretching her legs out across the floor. She's been reorganizing her closet, like she often does when she's stressed about something, and so her room is a total disaster which, oddly, makes her feel a bit calmer. Something something about having something to fix, or that's the theory her therapist in college had, anyway. "Look, we never made any promises or anything. It's fine if you want to break things off, but you scared the shit out of me that day. I just wanted to make sure you weren't…you know - "</p><p>"I know," Daniel says, still rueful. "I'm sorry."</p><p>"And the money's a bit much."</p><p>"Please keep it. Seriously," Daniel says, sounding a little desperate which is also sort of worrying. "How'd you crack your windshield? Pete said it looked bad."</p><p>"It was nothing. Some rock or something hit me on the highway. Then that cold front we had a couple weeks back cracked it even more."</p><p>"Doesn't sound like nothing."</p><p>"Well, it could've been worse," Grace amends, as a compromise. The silence on Daniel's end sounds distinctly skeptical. "Look, Daniel. I saw the news about your brother."</p><p>Daniel chokes abruptly, coughing loudly straight into the speaker. "Shit," he says again.</p><p>"Is that why you had to go home?" Grace asks, determinedly ignoring his reaction. Nothing left to lose, she figures. "Hey - that's all you had to say, is my point. 'Grace, I'm going through some shit and I need some space.' That's it. See how easy that was?"</p><p>"Grace, I'm going through some shit and I need some space," Daniel parrots, dry as a bone.</p><p>"Well, now it doesn't count, since you already freaked out. You can't apply common sense retroactively."</p><p>"I didn't freak out! I - <em>reacted</em> sort of badly, a little bit uh, how do you say it, <em>sensitively</em> - "</p><p>"Overreacted," Grace interrupts flatly.</p><p>"You told me you didn't fall in love," Daniel replies, rather bluntly, with a faint, accusatory sort of tone that makes Grace bristle. "I don't wanna fight about it, Grace, but you did tell me that. I distinctly remember you telling me that. And I trusted you, when you said it."</p><p>Grace just sits for a moment, processing <em>that.</em> She feels suddenly overly aware of her breathing, a little too quick from anxiety and the adrenaline of talking (sort-of-arguing) with him again, and of the fact that she's wearing a pair of men's boxers that she stole from his apartment. (Look, they're expensive and comfortable - don't read into it.) "Are you...accusing me of, what, lying about that? I meant it when I said it. All I said was that you could talk to me if you wanted, I wasn't proposing fucking marriage."</p><p>Daniel sucks in a sharp breath, like she's just called him a shocking name, or something. "I'm not accusing you of anything, I just - "</p><p>"And if you wanted something hands off no strings, <em>Daniel,</em> then maybe you should've taken a closer look at your <em>own</em> behavior," Grace continues, the initial anger she'd felt making an outraged reappearance. "Don't act like I was the one reading into things and making assumptions, okay? Be real about it, at least. I've been dumped before, I can handle it, but don't insult yourself or me by pretending like I was the only one who got their feelings involved."</p><p>Daniel is silent for a moment, then sighs so heavily Grace can practically feel the weight of it over the phone line. "You're right," he says, at length. "Yeah. You're right."</p><p>He sounds almost resigned, so weary and worn thin that tears prick unexpectedly at her eyes. "I didn't mean to pressure you into anything - "</p><p>"You didn't. Grace." He laughs, almost incredulously. "I told you, I don't date. But it's not because I don't <em>want</em> to."</p><p>Grace bites her lip, pulling her knees up to her chest. She'd known he was a lonely guy from the first night he sat down at her bar, but somehow - even despite the laundry list of blaring warning signs - she'd forgotten.</p><p>"I'm sorry," Daniel says, sounding more earnest than she's ever heard him before, "to drag you into all of this. My life. I should've known better. It's just that you were so...fun, and beautiful, and - " he broke off in a dry laugh, "you know, everything I've ever dreamed of in a woman - "</p><p>Grace scoffs.</p><p>"You are," Daniel says, oddly earnest. Grace leans her head back against the bed, laughing a little at her own exasperated, helpless fondness. "I couldn't resist, you know. That's on me. I knew it even as I was doing it. I should've left you alone. The minute I realized how much I liked you, I should've left."</p><p>"Daniel," Grace says, and finds herself stalling out, not knowing what to say. She could come out with the perfect sentence, eloquent and insightful, the wisest words that could ever be spoken, and he still has to <em>want</em> to be with her, is the thing. She can't talk him out of a decision that's freely his to make. "Daniel. You know it could be good. You and me. I know you know that."</p><p>He doesn't reply, but she can hear him moving around - pacing, maybe. Drinking anxiously on his balcony, in the middle of the day.</p><p>"I could be good for you, I could help you through whatever this shit is. You could help me with my shit, too. We complement each other. I think that's what made you like me so much in the first place. But I'm not made of stone, either. I can only give you so many chances before it starts to break my heart, and I'm not going to just lie down and let you stomp all over me. I respect myself too much."</p><p>"I'm trying not to do that," Daniel says quietly, seriously. "Grace, I respect you too. Tell me you know that."</p><p>"I do," Grace says, taking a deep breath. "So, here's the line, I guess. Step over it, or leave me alone. It's your decision - I'm not trying to twist your arm, or anything. But if all you're going to do is leave me..." Grace shakes her head, letting her eyes close shut. "Historically, I am not the best at...protecting myself. I need to get better at that, I really do. Consider this my first real attempt."</p><p>There's a tense silence, and Grace has a moment where she's sure, just absolutely <em>certain,</em> that he's about to hang up on her, and that she'll never hear from him again. But then, he makes a weird sound, halfway between a scoff and a grunt, and says, "Grace, I think you're the worst and best thing that's ever happened to me. All at the same time."</p><p>Grace laughs, her body going lax against the bed. "Thanks."</p><p>"I mean that." She hears him take a shaky, rattling breath. "What if I told you some scary shit, sweetheart? What if I told you the reason I'm terrified of you is because there are things about me that you'd have to see to believe?"</p><p>"Okay, slow down there, Twilight," Grace says, scoffing. "Are you in a cult?"</p><p>He laughs, a little too hysterically to settle Grace's nerves. She sits up straight, frowning.</p><p>"Are you going to tell me the truth now?" she asks, raising her voice a little to be heard over his slightly breathless, worrying laughter. "Is this you telling me that you're going to actually tell me what's going on with you?"</p><p>"Jesus," Daniel says, and to Grace's continuing alarm, he sounds close to tears. "Can we - will you come over here? I want to see you."</p><p>"So we can talk?" Grace asks warily. She unwinds her hand from the carpet, realizing in a surreal moment that she's been clenching her fingers in the fibers hard enough that her joints have started to ache.</p><p>"I'll tell you anything you want to know," Daniel says, resigned, sounding tired and oddly sad. "And if you believe me, and by some...astonishing, God-given miracle don't want to shoot me in the head right on the spot, then sure. Sure, let's do it. You're the girl of my dreams, you know. If I were a normal man, with a normal life, I'd have snapped you up the second I saw you, if you'd have me. I'd have proposed to you after a fucking week."</p><p>Grace doesn't reply, unsure of what to say. She reaches up and presses her palm flat against her chest, feeling her own heart beating in triple-time.</p><p>"I'll send Pete to pick you up, if you want," Daniel offers weakly. "Or we can meet in public. I want you to be comfortable."</p><p>"No, I'll come over," Grace says, a little hoarsely. Comfortable? What does that mean? "Daniel, I gotta say. I mean. You're kind of scaring me. Like, you scared me before, you know. But now you're <em>really</em> scaring me."</p><p>"Grace," Daniel says dryly, "you really have no idea."</p><p> </p><p> </p><p> </p><p> </p><p> </p><p> </p><p>Daniel opens the door looking like a man possessed and asks her three times if she wants something to drink before her answer seems to sink in. Her first thought is that he's on something, but his pupils are normal and he seems coherent enough, if a little tipsy. He doesn't seem to want to volunteer any information, which tracks, but he answers Grace's questions easily enough: yes, he'd gone home to New Orleans to meet Alex's fiance. No, it hadn't gone well. Yes, his family is why he's been acting so weird. No, they don't know she exists.</p><p>"It better fucking stay that way," Daniel says darkly. "I'm not kidding. If they ever show up here, or - or if you get a phone call, Grace - Grace, I'm serious. You tell them you're angry at me. You met me at a bar, had a one nighter, I screwed you over, whatever. I'm not kidding. <em>Don't</em>, under any circumstances, let them think that you give a shit."</p><p>Grace swallows hard, and nods. "Daniel. Look at me." He does. "What did they do to you?"</p><p>Daniel holds her gaze for a few seconds before he wavers, looking down at his jittering knees. He shakes his head silently.</p><p>"You don't have to tell me all the details. Just - honey, please. You're really scaring me."</p><p>"Honey," Daniel repeats, bemusedly, as if he's never heard the word before. "It's not like what you're thinking. They never smacked me around or anything. Well," he smirks darkly, "not much, anyway."</p><p>"Daniel."</p><p>"They're dangerous people, that's all. I'm not talking about - about just being mean. About being rich assholes who look down on poor people - even though they're that, too - I'm telling you, they're dangerous." Daniel drains the last of his drink. "They made me dangerous, too. Just by making me, giving birth to me. Raising me like they did. I can't ever...get away from it."</p><p>Grace watches his face warily, an animal instinct somewhere deep within her squirming in alarm. "What does that mean? Exactly?"</p><p>"What do you think it means, Grace?"</p><p>She frowns at him. "Don't do that. Don't try to intimidate me into not asking questions."</p><p>He laughs shortly. "That's the most terrifying thing about you, you know. That you don't scare easily."</p><p>Grace frowns again, processing that, while Daniel gets up to refill his glass, stumbling only a little as he shuffles slowly across the living room. When he turns, his highball full again, she's ready. "Do they make you hurt other people?"</p><p>Daniel sits down heavily, sloshing whiskey all over his leg. "Christ," he mutters.</p><p>Grace grabs one of the throw blankets off of the back of the couch she's sitting on, and throws it at him. "Here."</p><p>Daniel lets it hit him in the face passively, raising an eyebrow as he halfheartedly uses it to pat the side of his leg dry. "What do you mean by that - 'hurt?'"</p><p>"I don't know. You're the one who's supposed to be telling me the truth here, Daniel."</p><p>He sighs, tossing the ruined blanket away. "I was engaged about ten years ago. You probably know that already. It was in the file I sent you."</p><p>The file that Grace had confirmed by several hours of the best deep Google searching she could do, yes. She nods.</p><p>"I'd just turned thirty. I was lonely. I felt like I was getting old. I met her at a party my mother threw, which probably should've tipped me off right away, but I was still trying to impress them, back then. Make them love me like normal parents - or at least," Daniel laughed darkly, "at least love me as much as they loved Alex. I hadn't really figured out yet that that wasn't ever going to happen."</p><p>Grace leans forward on her knees, clasping her hands together beneath her chin. She wants to move, to sit closer to him, touch his face or something, but he's holding himself so tightly she's afraid she'll spook him and send him spinning off, even further away from her than he is now.</p><p>"I think we loved each other," Daniel says, and then pauses, "or maybe she just convinced me we did. She definitely loved my money. I told her everything on our fourth date. And I mean - <em>everything</em>. Things I don't think I can ever tell you."</p><p>That hurts, just a little. Grace tries not to react.</p><p>"I thought, because she was also a bad person," Daniel says thinly, "I thought maybe I could do it. Bring home a woman, marry her, play the game. I bought her a ring that she picked out herself. My father loved her. She told me she didn't care, that she could survive it. Maybe the money mattered to her more than her life, I don't know. Maybe she didn't believe me when I told her, I'm still not sure. But then the time came, and I couldn't. I just couldn't." He shakes his head, one elbow on his knee, holding his forehead in his hand, like he's trying hard to keep himself from looking up at her. "I remember, we were staying at the Windsor Court the week before the wedding - fucking four hunded bucks a night and you don't even get a view of the river - and she wanted to start planning our honeymoon. We couldn't go right away, you know, because my dad wanted me around afterwards, in case - Jesus Christ. In case." Daniel takes another desperate drink. "And she's going on and on about all these different places she wants to go to - Mexico and Italy and fucking private cruises to Alaska, whatever - and she stopped right in the middle of a sentence, and I'll never forget this, she said, 'if I live through the wedding night, that is.' And then she laughed. She <em>laughed,</em> Grace."</p><p>Grace feels a building, ominous sort of horror that's making her hands start to shake, curdling in her chest sourly like bad heartburn. "If she...lived?"</p><p>"If she lived," Daniel confirms grimly. He still doesn't look at her. "So I dumped her. I walked right out of the hotel and I cancelled all the reservations and I quit the company and moved here. My father will never forgive me. Most of the money - " he waves a lazy hand, "it's mine. I made it by using theirs, of course, so don't go getting the idea that I'm like, <em>heroic,</em> in this situation. But - you know - I had a trust fund they couldn't touch, I had investments. I cut myself off the best I could, but they're just so fucking <em>rich,</em> Grace. There's nowhere in the world I can go where they couldn't find me."</p><p>"Jesus," Grace says, feeling sick. "<em>Jesus</em>, Daniel."</p><p>"They probably already know about you," Daniel says, forlornly. "I - I've been trying to protect you - they keep tabs on me, but Pete knows some people at NYPD, and - well, anyway. I think I convinced them you weren't serious about me when I saw them last month, but I don't know. But you should know - you should know," Daniel stops, his face growing very serious, "what you're asking for. If we're seen together, after this - after I told them I dumped you - there's no going back, Grace. You don't even know what kind of people they are, how serious they are about their money."</p><p>Is she a <em>threat</em> to their money? Grace feels wildly terrified, at the same time that she wants to leap across the empty space between them and hold him close, tuck his head into her chest until that horrible look on his face melts away forever. "Is it - it's something to do with weddings? They do something...fucked up, when someone gets married?"</p><p>Daniel nods, looking miserable.</p><p>"And Alex…"</p><p>Daniel shakes his head, looking furious, and Grace cuts herself off before she can even come up with an ending to that sentence. "It's been bad between us for awhile. He almost got married before - this sweet girl he dated in college - fuck. We fought about it, he told me to fuck off. Thankfully she dumped him before he proposed, and I thought maybe he'd be smarter about it, but here he goes again." Daniel gestures angrily with his glass, sloshing liquor again, this time all over the carpet. "I don't know what the fuck to do. I don't know who the fuck he is anymore. We used to talk about it - getting out. How to escape. When I left Charity, he - he helped me leave. When it all went down, he was the one who got me out of the city in one piece. Fuck."</p><p>Grace feels somewhat unreal, like she's not really awake. "Daniel," she says, sliding to her feet, unable to help herself. Daniel watches her incredulously, like he can't believe she's real either, as she moves to the ottoman in front of his chair, touching his knees tentatively. They shake, almost violently, beneath her hands. "Have you ever told anybody? The police, anyone?"</p><p>"The police." Daniel laughs bitterly. "I tried a couple times. When I was a kid. It doesn't work out well."</p><p>Grace swallows back bile. "How many - "</p><p>"Please don't ask me that. Grace, please." His voice breaks.</p><p>She leans down, pressing her cheek against his knee. He makes a hurt noise of disbelief, almost comically loud, his free hand coming to rest tentatively against her shoulder.</p><p>"Why are you still here," he says, after a moment. "Why are you doing this to me?"</p><p>"Doing what?" Grace mumbles. "Caring about you?" She kisses his knee, wet with liquor, and lifts her head. He's staring at her, pupils blown, looking almost stricken. Like she's breaking his heart. "Have you ever killed anybody, Daniel?"</p><p>He makes a strangled noise. "That's - a complicated question."</p><p>"It isn't. Daniel." She grabs his hand and holds it to her chest, pressing it flat against her heartbeat. "Have you ever killed anyone. It's a yes or no question. Answer me."</p><p>Daniel opens his mouth, and then closes it. "I - I helped them," he says haltingly, sounding like he's digging each word out from solid rock. "I helped them...prepare. I lied when they told me - "</p><p>"Did you hurt them yourself? Did you," Grace squeezes his hands, "physically, purposefully, hurt them?"</p><p>Daniel looks like a ghost, he's so pale. He shakes his head in the negative, jerkily.</p><p>"You were a kid. Weren't you?" Grace pulls his hand up and kisses it. "They were supposed to love you and protect you, Daniel. It's not your fault that they didn't."</p><p>He inhales sharply at that, like she's just punched him in the face. "Don't do that. Don't, please," Daniel says, jerking his hands away from her grip. "I can't do this if you're fucking nice to me. Stop looking at me like that."</p><p>"Do what? Kick me out?" Grace asks, leadingly. "Do you want me to leave, Daniel?"</p><p>Daniel pushes the ottoman she's sitting on away with his foot, leaning over on his knee again and covering his face with both hands. They're shaking, worryingly fast, against his forehead.</p><p>"Why are you telling me this?" Grace asks, her throat impossibly tight, so much so that she can barely get the words out. She rubs at her face harshly, angry at herself for the weakness. "If you really wanted to just scare me off, you wouldn't have been so kind to me. You wouldn't have shown me who you were. Jesus, I told you to be real about it. With yourself, at least."</p><p>"You asked for the truth," Daniel reminds her hoarsely, not looking up.</p><p>"I did," Grace says bracingly, letting the tears spill over. "I did. But you offered, Daniel. You kept reaching out, like you wanted me to see you. Like you wanted me to <em>like</em> you. And God fucking help me, I do." She laughs helplessly, spreading her palms out wide, shrugging at the empty air. "You think I didn't know there was something going on? Do you think I'm stupid? You have nightmares, you flinch at loud noises. I'm not a fucking idiot."</p><p>Daniel's shoulders twitch, like he's about to look up, but his head just falls further down towards his knees, his palms rubbing up over his head and onto the back of his neck. She can hear him breathing heavily, like he's panting.</p><p>"I'll leave if you want me to," Grace says, with an almost frenzied sort of helplessness, "but I know you don't want me to. What's the move, after that, Daniel? You drink yourself to death, all alone in here? You left, didn't you - that means you wanted to live, right? You wanted to be a better person, to escape them - whoever the fuck they are, whatever the fuck they're doing. You tried to protect your fiance, you're trying to protect me. You're trying to get your brother to do the right thing. What does all that mean? That you're an irredeemable piece of shit? You said it yourself, that you didn't have a chance. They raised you to be something terrible, and in spite of everything, you threw it back in their face. That <em>means</em> something. It <em>does</em>."</p><p>"The move," Daniel echoes, pulling his head up with some effort. The look on his face makes Grace want to cover her face with her own hands and cry. "Yeah, what's the move. What's the move, Grace? We've only known each other for three fucking months. You don't need this shit."</p><p>"It's actually been four," Grace bites back, "<em>asshole.</em>"</p><p>"Well, I wasn't counting the month and a half - "</p><p>"<em>Two months.</em>"</p><p>" - that we didn't talk. Jesus," Daniel says, dodging her foot as she reaches out to kick him. "Come on. <em>That's</em> what you get mad about?"</p><p>"You're such a dick," Grace says waveringly, and finally feels her dam break. She leans over on her elbows, her shoulders shaking, and flinches at the sound Daniel makes when he realizes that she's crying.</p><p>"Stop. Please, stop," Daniel says, pained. She feels him reach over and drag the ottoman back over, pulling it with both hands so that she's even closer to him than before. "Don't cry. God, please don't cry. I'm gonna throw myself off the fucking balcony."</p><p>"Oh my God, just hug me, you fucking prick," Grace mutters, and Daniel flails his hands around momentarily before apparently gathering his balls enough to pull her close, smoothing his palms tentatively down her arms. Grace snorts, despite the hysteria, and smashes her face into his sweater, smearing her tears - and what has to be most of her makeup - all over it out of pure spite.</p><p>It's weirdly, surreally sweet, the way he holds her like she's something terribly precious, his hands so hesitant and gentle, almost careful like he's unsure where to put them. Grace leans against him until her back starts to ache and their breathing has slowed together into a matching, paired rhythm, which is so calming she feels like she might fall asleep right there if she isn't careful. She imagines their heartbeats lining up too, which is so stupid and romantic it makes her embarrassed on her own behalf. Considering the gravity and magnitude of what he just confessed to her about his family - dangerous, too.</p><p>"Daniel," Grace says, breaking the silence. He hums as an answer, and Grace can feel the vibration of his throat against her forehead. "I think we're in trouble."</p><p>"Yeah," he says.</p><p>"I think, Daniel - "</p><p>"In over our head," he says, finishing a thought she didn't know she was about to have.</p><p>"Just a little fucking bit," Grace agrees. She sighs forlornly. "Do you want me to leave? I will. If you think it's the best thing for both of us. But you have to mean it, this time."</p><p>"It would be the safest thing," Daniel says, almost plaintively. "The smart thing." He's quiet for a long, long moment, his hands clenching against her back. His breath feels heavy and warm against her hair. "But I don't want you to leave. You were right about me. I want you to see me. God help me, but." He buries his face in her hair, sounding on the verge of tears himself. "I want your help, Grace. I do."</p><p>"Then I'll stay," Grace says, smushing her face back against his shoulder.</p><p>"Shit."</p><p>"Tell me about it," Grace mutters.</p><p> </p><p> </p><p> </p><p> </p><p> </p><p> </p><p>They make love that night sort of frantically, grappling at each other in the half-dark, with a near desperation that feels kind of absurd at the same time that Grace can't help but lose herself in it. It feels like he's shipping off to fucking Vietnam in the morning, or something. Daniel presses his face against her chest and just holds her there after she finally comes, still hard inside of her, for a long fucking time, his shoulders trembling beneath her palms. She doesn't think he was crying - she's pretty sure she'd be able to tell if he was - but he turns his face away afterwards, pulling out of her and turning away without reaching orgasm himself. Grace finds his hand in the dark, squeezing tightly, and doesn't push him on it.</p><p>The next morning he orders delivery omelets and shows her an email from his aunt, the only Le Domas with modest Google results, so Grace doesn't actually have an opinion pre-formed already. The surveillance photos of herself, and Daniel, out and about on the various dates they'd been on, is enough to give her one, though. Holy fuck.</p><p>"Obviously I knew they watch me," Daniel says, and Grace makes an incredulous face at him, thinking, <em>obviously?</em> "But she sent me this last week. I think she found out that I paid for your bonus and got suspicious - "</p><p>"That was <em>you?</em>" Grace says. The bar had given them all Christmas bonuses that year - an unexpected windfall that had allowed Grace to pay off a credit card - and ever since one of the general floor managers let it slip that the money had come from a <em>donation</em> from a rich guest, the gossip on who it was and why had been out of control. "That is...holy shit. So weird, Daniel."</p><p>"Listen, you already know this about me," Daniel complains. "I was under the impression you were well-acquainted with my baggage vis-á-vis that issue. Can we stick to the point, here?"</p><p>"We have to talk about that later. Like - the paying for shit thing. I'm serious."</p><p>Daniel rolls his eyes, making a face like the husband on a sitcom, as if Grace is nagging him about the fucking toilet seat or something instead of the incredibly unhealthy, invasive relationship he has with money. "Whatever, fine," he says, "later. This is what I'm talking about though, Grace, I'm telling you they know who you are. If we're seen in public together - "</p><p>"So no more parties at the governor's mansion then," Grace says, her heart beating a little too fast, "do they - I mean, you don't depend on their money now, right? Like do they have any legal way of controlling you, other than intimidation?"</p><p>"Not legal," Daniel says reluctantly, "but it doesn't really fucking matter, does it? When you have this kind of money. I wasn't kidding when I said I tried to go to the cops, Grace. When I was in high school - and again in college - "</p><p>"They didn't believe you?" Grace asks, feeling somewhat numb, just from the surreality of the conversation.</p><p>"You could say that. I still haven't told you everything," Daniel says, leaning on his elbows on the counter, rubbing his face slowly in exhaustion. "What they do - you haven't even asked. What they believe - what <em>I</em> believed for half my life - some days I think I still believe it - "</p><p>"I don't need to know everything," Grace says hastily. She looks down at her hands, lying flat against the counter, and takes a deep breath. "I trust you."</p><p>Daniel laughs out loud, but it's an ugly sound. "Bad idea."</p><p>"Fuck you," Grace says, rolling her eyes. The laptop is sitting open on the counter between them, and Grace reaches out and scrolls down, looking at photos of herself taken from security cameras and CCTV footage, blissfully oblivious. It says something about her state of mind, maybe, that Grace is a little relieved that they weren't taken with like, a camera. "So - I mean, what are we talking about here, Daniel? What should we be talking about?"</p><p>"What will they do to us, you mean?" Daniel's expression goes tight and dark. "They'll expect me home for Alex's wedding. I need to - I need you not to be there. You can<em>not</em> be there. But if they know we're still together - they'll expect me to bring you. To the ceremony, at least."</p><p>"Okay," Grace says slowly, her stomach roiling. "This girl Alex is marrying - "</p><p>"Olivia," Daniel says dimly. "She seems sweet."</p><p>"Can we warn her?"</p><p>"In a way she'll believe me? Maybe," Daniel says. "It would be better coming from you. Less intimidating."</p><p>Grace chews on her thumbnail, nerves making her feel jittery and exposed, especially in the open daylight of Daniel's bright, airy kitchen. "She's at least met <em>you.</em>"</p><p>"She doesn't like me," Daniel says. He rubs his chin, looking much older than Grace has ever seen him look before. "She met everyone at dinner last month. I tried to, I dunno, talk to her, but...Alex told her some shit about me, I guess. I don't know. Maybe it came from Emilie - it's hard to say."</p><p>Grace sighs, leaning forward to lean her forehead against his arm. It's sort of scaring her how tense he is, almost vibrating in place. She can feel him trying to keep his breaths even - deliberately-timed inhales and exhales that push his shoulder gently against the side of her face. "Can you talk to Alex?"</p><p>"He's too scared. Not that I blame him," Daniel says. "I tried to...protect him, when we were little. From seeing the worst of it. I think I protected him too much, maybe. When I left, I left him behind. I didn't think of it that way at the time, I thought - he's always been the favorite, you know. I trusted Emilie too much, I thought she would - anyway." Daniel leans his head against the top of Grace's, sighing tiredly. "Whatever happened that he's not telling me about - I don't know that I want to know. I already tried to convince him. He won't tell her anything - he thinks she'll leave him."</p><p><em>Well, I would,</em> Grace thinks. "What exactly," she whispers, pressing the words into his shirt sleeve, as if that's going to make the answer easier to hear, "do they do, Daniel?"</p><p>Daniel is quiet for a long time, hunching over with his arms halfway held around her, leaning his face against her hair. Grace closes her eyes and waits, her heart beating so fast it makes her feel a little lightheaded.</p><p>"They...consume people," Daniel finally says, murmuring the words against her temple. "They chew them up and spit them out. Not literally. But also literally."</p><p>Grace squints her eyes shut, and tries not to imagine.</p><p>"Maybe part of me thought that Charity...deserved it. Jesus," Daniel says, his voice breaking a little. "I can't believe I just said that out loud. I can't believe you're still standing here."</p><p>"I don't scare easily," Grace reminds him, numbly.</p><p>"You should. God, what am I doing? What are <em>you</em> doing? This is crazy - "</p><p>"Daniel, just, shut up for a second," Grace says, pulling out of the embrace, her head spinning. "Just - stop it, with the guilt routine, let me fucking think. Okay?"</p><p>Daniel covers his face with his hands again, breathing out a slow, shaky breath.</p><p>"Do you," Grace starts, and then stops, and rethinks. "Will they really - "</p><p>"Yes," Daniel says.</p><p>"Even if we're not married, they might - "</p><p>"Hurt you? Yes," Daniel says, unforgiving. "Especially if they think you're a threat." He clears his throat. "Which you already are. Just by…"</p><p>"Caring about you," Grace says flatly. "What - luring you away?"</p><p>Daniel gives a little shrug, wincing.</p><p>"Jesus, this is so fucked up," Grace mutters. The omelet she'd forced down earlier feels heavy in her stomach, and the smell of coffee in the kitchen is making her nauseous. "I think I need - "</p><p>"Space? Yes," Daniel says. "I should've - do you want to take the car? I can call Pete. Or I can leave. Or - "</p><p>"Stop," Grace says, holding out her hands. She notices distantly that they're trembling. "I need to - I just need to think for a few hours. By myself. I need to...go buy a fucking book on cults, or something. Holy Christ."</p><p>"I - okay," Daniel says. His eyes are darting around nervously, but he doesn't move. "Again, may I offer you a car? I have several at my disposal, and none of them leak snow through the front windshield."</p><p>"God, would you let that go? I promised you last night I was going to keep the money to get it fixed."</p><p>"It's the principle of the thing," Daniel says, pushing back from the kitchen island. "It's been like three weeks, and I know you don't wear gloves in the winter. Your hands are actually one of the most delicate parts of your body, you know."</p><p>"Really? Because that sounds like bullshit to me, you fucking worrywart."</p><p>"I think I read it in a magazine," Daniel says with a shrug, and offers her a set of keys from the pocket of a jacket hanging off the end of a chair. Just to save time, Grace rolls her eyes, and takes them.</p><p>Space is <em>definitely</em> needed, she thinks - the urge to fall back into Daniel's bed and cover her head up with blankets is strong, as is the urge to get the hell out of the apartment and not look back. Some time alone to process is good - she learned that in therapy. Grace pauses at the door, letting him pull her close for a kiss, and feels a little trapped by the way he leans over her, the oppressive physicality of his body, at the same time that it feels comforting - familiar. Jesus, what <em>are</em> they doing? Has she been dreaming the last twenty-four hours, or what?</p><p>"I wouldn't blame you," Daniel mumbles, trailing kisses down her cheek towards her ear, "if you didn't come back."</p><p>"Unlike some of us in the room," Grace says pointedly, "I'm not a fucking pussy."</p><p>Daniel snorts. "Fair."</p><p>"I will come back. I just need a couple hours to think."</p><p>"Also fair," he says, and leans in for another kiss. It feels like a goodbye, Grace thinks uncomfortably, and knows that means he doesn't really believe her. He looks resigned, when she pulls away. It makes her want to prove him wrong. "I'm just saying. You don't have to feel bad, or anything. I get it."</p><p>"I'm coming back," Grace tells him stubbornly.</p><p>"Okay."</p><p>"I am." She digs her knee into his leg, which makes him wince, hunching over a little in pain. "Asshole."</p><p>"I think," Daniel says, wheezing slightly and bracing himself with one hand against the door jam, "your kindness and generosity are what I like most about you. Generally speaking."</p><p>"Ghost me again and I'm gonna drive your car into the ocean," Grace says, waving his keys in his face. "I <em>know</em> this one's your favorite."</p><p>Daniel sighs. "Your grace, too. Very attractive. No pun intended."</p><p>"Please. Like I haven't heard that one before," Grace says, rolling her eyes.</p><p> </p><p> </p><p> </p><p> </p><p> </p><p> </p><p>Grace drives around for a couple hours - she will never admit it, but he does have a point about driving in a car with actual heat, it really is pretty nice - until she feels less like screaming, and then stops off at the public library a few counties over, where she still has an active card from when she lived there in a terrible off-campus with six similarly broke roommates. Feeling paranoid, and a little silly, she puts on a pair of sunglasses and wraps her hair in a scarf, which probably won't do much of anything but make people look at her weird, but whatever, it makes her feel better.</p><p>Olivia Cassidy is from Toronto, originally, and she's a series regular on a TV show about a group of bounty hunters who live in space. She plays a doctor who is apparently (as far as Grace can tell from the Wikipedia summary) the main on-again, off-again love interest for the main character. Grace looks at the photo of her in costume for a long time - she's not that much younger than Grace is, young enough that she still has visible baby fat around her chin and neck. She's blonde - pretty in a wholesome way. In the official photoshoot, she's wearing some kind of futuristic lab coat thing, and she has some cool prosthetic ears because her character is also (apparently) an alien. But like, a hot one. No tentacles, or anything. The sort of alien who wears heeled boots and a skin-tight jumpsuit, beneath the lab coat.</p><p>What could Grace even say? Not much, especially considering she doesn't even really know what the fuck to warn this girl about. The clear, obvious terror was convincing enough, sitting there in Daniel's apartment, trying not to cry about the look on his face, but in the light of day - doesn't it sound ridiculous? <em>Dear Stranger. Your fiance? The man you know and love and trust? He's bad news. His family is going to chop you up in little pieces and serve you in the stew, or...something. Could you take my word for it? My boyfriend (yeah, your fiance's brother, that guy you hate) says it's really serious. Okay, thanks!</em> Yeah, right.</p><p>And then, the problem of Daniel: what to do, what to believe. Of course she believes <em>him</em> - this was all confirmation of what she'd already suspected, albeit much more...intense than the "my dad beats me up, my mother locked me in closets and starved me" scenarios she'd been picturing - and obviously, clearly, the most logical thing to do would be to go to the cops. But he was right, about the money - Grace is all too aware of how it would look, how it would sound. Plenty of kids she knew, back in the day, did the right thing and told their teachers or their social workers or whatever, and all they got for it was a new placement and - occasionally, depending on how serious whatever injuries they had were - some sort of bribe to keep their mouth shut. Grace isn't stupid. She knows how it works.</p><p>Does she trust him? Unfortunately, yes. Does she <em>love</em> him? This question is scarier. A little, maybe. She wasn't blowing hot air, when she said they could be good together. He's good for her - looks out for her. Cares for her. Makes her feel safe, despite all evidence (and all his efforts, as well) to the contrary. And it's not the shit he does with his money, that makes Grace's knees go weak, the gifts and the help or whatever - it's the little shit. It's the way he'd said "you never wear gloves in the winter." The careful hand on her back when she walks up the stairs. The way he watches her sometimes when he thinks she doesn't notice, like he's waiting for her to need something, so he can provide it.</p><p>Yeah, Grace loves him a little. Fuck.</p><p><em>When Emilie got married,</em> Daniel had told her last night, in the heavy silence as they lay there in bed together, <em>she was already three months pregnant with my nephew. She tried to get an abortion when she found out but my mother took her to Palm Springs for the weekend, and when she came back she was...different. She started taking a lot of pills, changed her mind completely about getting married. All smiles - fake smiles - but she acted like she didn't know what we were talking about, when we asked her what happened. She was like me and Alex before that - didn't want to get married, she was adamant about it. She only started sleeping with Fitch when he told her he was impotent. And you know what? I think he was telling the truth. I really do. He seemed as surprised as she was, when he found out about the baby. He called Georgie "the miracle baby" for the first two years - until Em got pregnant again, that is. He seemed pretty fucking surprised about that, too.</em></p><p>There's an instinct, deep within Grace's heart, that is telling her to run. But that instinct is matched with another that wants her to square her shoulders, plant her feet, and keep her eyes open. Grace's biggest problem, the main reason why she could never find a foster placement that stuck, wasn't that she was <em>confrontational</em>, exactly, but rather that she didn't know how to de-escalate like most girls did, smooth things over. She lacked that peacemaking talent that most women seemed to have - and whether it was something inherent to womankind that she missed out on because she didn't have a mother to teach her, or just something most women developed out of necessity, she's never been sure. When someone had beef with her, Grace never knew how to back down. It just wasn't in her nature.</p><p>Her first reaction, when Daniel had implied that she wasn't going to come back, was to argue. Just to prove him wrong, but also to prove herself right. Even as Grace sits, contemplating all the red flag warning signs, the blaring alarms going off telling her to run - she's thinking: <em>no. He's mine now.</em> A fierce, possessive protectiveness is unfurling in her chest, made tender by how hard Daniel had worked to keep her away. Her own contrariness, damning her once more, making her want to reach out and hold on tight to something that's clearly too dangerous to be kept. <em>Well, fuck you,</em> Grace thinks. <em>I do what I want.</em> For better or worse, some would say.</p><p>She starts, and scraps, almost half a dozen emails, sitting there at the library. It's especially stupid because she has no way of getting in touch with Olivia Cassidy, who is an actual celebrity (C-list or no), and not just famous in the way the Le Domases are famous (known only to the society pages, and other people with obscene gobs of money). By the time she leaves, it feels like a decision has been made. And she has somewhat of an idea of <em>what</em> to say, should she get the opportunity.</p><p>For better or worse. Like with most big decisions she's made in her life so far, Grace feels a bit calmer, now that she's made it. Wherever it takes her, at least she knows she's sure about it. That's a hell of a lot more than most people can say.</p><p> </p><p> </p><p> </p><p> </p><p> </p><p> </p><p>For good measure, Grace sleeps on it. For three days, actually - she calls out sick, tells them she has a stomach flu and stays home, barely leaving her room. Daniel doesn't text or call - not that she'd expected him to - but Grace sends him messages every morning, around nine or so when she knows he'll be rolling out of bed, shuffling over to the shower, putting on a pot of coffee with half-lidded eyes.</p><p> </p><p> </p><p> </p>
<p></p><div>
  <p>SMS 9:12 AM<br/>
Still alive. Still not a pussy. Js</p>
</div><p>SMS 9:14 AM<br/>
good to know. Still thinkin'</p><p> </p><p> </p>
<p></p><div>
  <p>SMS 9:19 AM<br/>
Few more hours on simmer, maybe. Makes me nice and tender</p>
</div><p>SMS 9:21 AM<br/>
Grace please don't sext me right before I have to go into the office</p><p> </p><p> </p>
<p></p><div>
  <p>SMS 9:21 AM<br/>
Lol """"OFFICE"""" okay sure daniel</p>
</div><p>SMS 9:30 AM<br/>
The living room counts</p><p> </p><p> </p><p>So she's taking some time. She doesn't do much thinking at all, really - more like sulking - but the resolve is still there, and so is the fierceness. She's been having dreams - nightmares, really - that feel eerily real, but she never wakes up feeling scared. More like angry, and a little resentful. Almost like she's been betrayed by somebody or something that she can't see. Not Daniel, exactly. But someone just as important.</p><p>On the morning of the fourth day - very early morning, before the sun has risen - Grace wakes up suddenly, disconcertingly fast, going from a deep sleep to a sudden, frightening wakefulness in the span of a heartbeat. She lies there for a few minutes, staring at her ceiling, with an eerie sense that something is wrong, before she realizes that she can't move her legs. She gasps - sort of involuntary, feeling herself panic a little - and lifts her head, and her blood runs cold. There's a man in her bedroom.</p><p>"The fuck," Grace mutters, and feels her ears pop as the pressure in the room changes. Her legs are suddenly released from the invisible pressure, and Grace scrambles up against the headboard, groping for the baseball bat she's taken to keeping next to her nightstand. It falls out of her grip before she can get a good hold - rolling unnaturally quickly away on the floor and hitting her closet door with a terrifying crack.</p><p>She can't see his face. She has the impression that he's old, but she can't quite make out the shape of his body, either. He's sitting in a chair that shouldn't be there - Grace doesn't own much furniture - and as she watches, pressing herself against the headboard with a profound sort of otherworldly shock - he lights a match, and she smells the distinct odor of a musty cigar, earthy and a little rotten, like one that's gotten damp in the rain. Even the light of the small flame doesn't do much to illuminate his face - if he even has one.</p><p><b>GRACE,</b> he says. It says. Whatever, she's not splitting hairs. The voice comes from inside of her, at the same time that she hears it in the room, but somehow there's still no sound. Grace clutches the edges of her headboard with tense fingers, and waits. <b>NICE TO FINALLY MEET YOU.</b></p><p>"What the fuck," Grace manages, gasping as the air pressure changes again. A sharp ache explodes in her temples, and she fumbles at her face, wiping away a trickle of blood coming from her nose.</p><p><b>SORRY, STILL NOT USED TO THIS TIME. GROWING PAINS, YOU KNOW.</b> The figure seems to waver, like a piece of film running off its track, and as she watches, he grows shorter, and the ache in Grace's head eases, just a little. <b>BETTER?</b></p><p>"Who the fuck are you?" she says, on a gasp. "What is this?"</p><p><b>A DREAM, OF SORTS. HERE, I'LL TRY AGAIN.</b> Another waver, and suddenly, there's the shadow of a top hat. <b>APOLOGIES. IT WAS EASIER TO TALK TO YOU BEFORE. BUT THEN AGAIN - YOU HAVEN'T WON THE GAME YET. NOT HERE, ANYWAY.</b></p><p>Grace doesn't move, frozen halfway between a weird sort of stupor, and a strange feeling of outrage. As if she's offended that this is even happening. The feeling doesn't make a lot of sense, but what has, lately?</p><p>"Who are you?" she tries again.</p><p><b>I AM THE STAR OF MORNING,</b> it says, or maybe it says <em>mourning.</em> Grace can't be sure. <b>I AM THE ONE THEY PRAY TO. WE HAVE MET BEFORE, OF COURSE. YOU DON'T REMEMBER.</b></p><p>They? Grace closes her eyes, the smell of the cigar suddenly overwhelming. Who's they? The Le Domases?</p><p><b>OBVIOUSLY,</b> he says. <b>GRACE, WE DON'T HAVE MUCH TIME. YOU MUST LISTEN CAREFULLY. I HAVE SOME ADVICE FOR YOU.</b></p><p>Advice?</p><p>
  <b>COUNSEL FROM A FRIEND. YOU WOULD CALL ME AN ADVERSARY, IF YOU REMEMBERED WHO I AM, BUT THERE IS NOT SO MUCH DIFFERENCE, IN THE GRAND SCHEME OF THINGS. IT ALL COMES OUT IN THE WASH, AS THEY SAY. WOULD YOU LIKE A CIGARILLO? THESE CHOCOLATE ONES ARE VERY NICE.</b>
</p><p>"What the fuck?" Grace says. "No?"</p><p><b>VERY WELL.</b> The figure seems to twist, almost like a shrug, and Grace watches a curl of smoke wind up towards the ceiling. <b>YOUR HEART REMEMBERS ME, AS IT REMEMBERS OTHER THINGS. IT REMEMBERS MY SON DANIEL. YOU HUMANS LOVE YOUR PATTERNS. SO MANY TIMES I'VE WATCHED YOU PLAY, AND WIN, AND EACH TIME IT SEEMS TO GET A LITTLE EASIER. BUT AS YOUNG AS I AM, I AM ALSO OLD. AREN'T YOU TIRED, GRACE?</b></p><p>Grace thinks about it, and finds that she is. Tired, and weary, and furiously angry, all at once. Betrayed, somehow. Is she dreaming? Probably. She can't feel her legs again.</p><p><b>I WILL TELL YOU A STORY, AND I WILL KEEP IT SHORT, </b>it says. <b>SOME TIME AGO, A HUMAN MAN BEAT ME AT CARDS. HE WAS CLEVER AND AMBITIOUS, AND A LITTLE TOO HANDSOME, I THOUGHT. I MEANT TO CURB HIS ARROGANCE, BUT IN DOING SO I TRAPPED MYSELF AS WELL. DO YOU KNOW, GRACE, THAT THERE WAS NO SIN, BEFORE THERE WAS CHOICE? YOU CAN LEAD A HORSE TO WATER, BLAH BLAH BLAH. WHAT TRULY AMAZES ME, EVEN NOW AFTER SO MANY SUNRISES, IS HOW LITTLE I HAVE TO TRY. YOU CREATE YOUR OWN CAGES, YOU HUMANS. YOUR OWN EXECUTION WHEELS.</b></p><p>Fuck you fuck you fuck you fuck you, Grace thinks, fiercely.</p><p><b>INCREDIBLE,</b> he says, sounding amused. <b>VERY INVENTIVE. ANYWAY, ONE DOES GET BORED AFTER A WHILE. EVERY GENERATION I HAVE CHOSEN ONE SON, HOPING HE WILL OPEN THE DOOR. I FIND MYSELF DISAPPOINTED - YES, EVEN IN DANIEL. RARELY DOES THE LAMB MAKE IT FAR ENOUGH TO REACH THE LATCH, BUT SOMEHOW, YOU DID. ONCE, AND THEN TWICE, AND NOW - WELL, WHO KEEPS TRACK? ENOUGH TO RAISE MY EYEBROWS, SO TO SPEAK. NOT THAT I HAVE EYEBROWS, BUT YOU GET THE POINT.</b></p><p>"What do you want?" Grace says, through a tight throat. She feels trapped against the headboard, pinned by an invisible force. Not frightened, exactly - just profoundly angry, a self-righteous rage that feels almost virtuous - mythical.</p><p><b>WANT? NO. NOTHING. I AM ABOVE WANT,</b> it says, and Grace somehow feels the truth of it. <b>THIS IS WHAT I WANT YOU TO REMEMBER: DEALS HAVE POWER. GAMES HAVE POWER. I AM NO HUMAN, AND THEREFORE, I AM ALSO ABOVE FREE WILL. NO LUXURY OF CHOICE. I AM WHAT I WAS CREATED TO BE. I ACT BECAUSE I AM, AND I AM BECAUSE I ACT.</b></p><p>What utter bullshit. No choice, no free will? How is he even talking to her, then?</p><p><b>SMALL MINDED,</b> it accused. <b>THINK BIGGER, GRACE. THINK COSMIC.</b></p><p>Grace gropes for her face, wiping away more blood. "Cosmic" makes her think of cosmic brownies, which makes her laugh, the sound catching in her throat. Her head is spinning, her breath getting short in her chest, as if she's about to pass out. Can you pass out in a dream? Grace feels like she's about to find out.</p><p><b>THEY ALL HAD A CHOICE,</b> says Mr. Le Bail. Somehow, Grace knows this is a name he uses, even though she's sure she's never heard it before. <b>EVERY LAST ONE. THEY ALL CHOSE TO STAY. THE DOOR HAS ALWAYS BEEN OPEN, GRACE. PERHAPS IT IS NOT THEIR FAULT THAT THEY DON'T KNOW HOW TO WALK THROUGH IT. PERHAPS THAT IS WHAT YOU BOTH NEED, TO RELEASE US ALL. SO CONSIDER THIS A HINT.</b></p><p>Grace closes her eyes, and sees: a white dress, smeared with dirt and blood. Sweat stains on the grip of a gun, and Daniel's face, weary and resigned, lit up by candlelight. A wooden box, and the sound of goats bleating. A car, crashed in the woods.</p><p><b>FIGURE IT OUT,</b> he says, unyielding. Grace sags against the headboard, overwhelmed, light-headed, still so furious she can hardly breathe. <b>HAVE FAITH. WHEW - BEEN A FEW YEARS SINCE I DID THIS. JUST LIKE THE OLD DAYS. NEED ANY MIRACLES, WHILE I'M HERE? NO? WELL, THINK ABOUT IT. YOU HAVE MY NUMBER.</b></p><p>Fuck you, Grace thinks, with every desperate, weary bone in her body. Her anger feels helpless - futile, the sort of rage you feel against the weather, for being so unyielding and uncompassionate. Throwing stones into the ocean, and yelling into the wind - cathartic, maybe, but unnecessary. Like getting mad at the sky, for being too big. Or the sunset, for being too beautiful. As she slips back into unconsciousness, she could swear she hears him laughing. And somewhere, deep inside, with a clarity she'll never feel again, she thinks: <em>well, hey. That's new.</em></p><p> </p><p> </p><p> </p><p> </p><p> </p><p> </p><p>Grace wakes up on the fourth day and gets dressed and stops for coffee at Starbucks and is halfway to Daniel's place before she even realizes what she's doing, blinking back to reality on the highway, her weird dream from the night before fogging up her brain like a hangover from bad weed. There's a sort of determination deep in her gut that feels out of place, especially since she can't remember what she's so determined about. To help Olivia? To figure out how to get Daniel away from his serial killer family? To get laid again before they both get arrested or axe murdered, or worse? All of the above. Maybe.</p><p>He's already there, waiting for her with more takeout, when she arrives. Like he knew she was coming. The look on his face is pretty pale, definitely freaked out, something that Grace thinks has to be mirrored in her own expression. They both had fucked up dreams last night, it seems.</p><p>"Have you ever been married?" he asks, apropos of nothing, as they solemnly work their way through fancy crepes from what was probably the most expensive breakfast place on Uber Eats. Grace's has actual prosciutto in it. The fancy, rich bastard.</p><p>"No. Obviously it would've come up by now, don't you think?"</p><p>"Yeah, I don't know - " Daniel breaks off momentarily, shaking his head. "I don't know why I was thinking about that."</p><p>Grace feels uneasy, but not in a bad way. Like she's on the verge of solving a puzzle, the answer hovering right there, on the tip of her tongue. "I don't think I want to get married," she says, realizing it's true as she says it. "I thought I did, once. When I was younger."</p><p>"Neither do I," Daniel says quickly.</p><p>Grace chews slowly, trying not to grimace. The food that had tasted amazing on the first bite now tastes sour. "Daniel," she says slowly, "your family - "</p><p>He goes tense, watching her warily. But he doesn't look like he's about to run, either, which is a good sign. Probably.</p><p>"They think like rich people. Right?"</p><p>"Obviously."</p><p>"So - they track you through money. Your money. Have you ever thought about - "</p><p>"Giving it up?" Daniel snorts, pushing his coffee cup away. "Every day of my life."</p><p>Grace takes another bite, and then swallows quickly, resisting the urge to spit it out.</p><p>"My family. My father." Daniel takes a deep breath, before he can get the words out. "It's payment. That's what it is. A tithe, they call it." He keeps his eyes on his plate, doing the even, controlled breathing again. Grace wants very badly to reach out and touch him, but she clenches her hands, not wanting to spook him. "But I don't know how to live like that. How to support myself like a normal person. They never taught us. They raised us to depend on it, to be helpless without it. That's how they - "</p><p>Brainwash you, Grace thinks grimly. "I could help you," she says. She smiles weakly. "I'm pretty good at being poor."</p><p>Daniel snorts again, but his shoulders spread out a little, and his hand turns upwards on the table. Grace gathers her courage, and reaches out to grab it, squeezing his palm in her fingers, and he sags against the table, like a puppet with cut strings.</p><p>"Maybe that's what I deserve," he says. "To be helpless, for once."</p><p>"Not helpless," Grace corrects. "Normal."</p><p>"Ordinary?" He smiles a little. "Sounds nice."</p><p>Grace pulls his hand closer, cradling it in both of her hands. The trust she feels for him feels innate, something ingrained in her body, like the rhythm of her heartbeat, or the pulse of her blood. It doesn't make sense, but it feels natural. Somewhere deep inside her head, she has a half-formed thought, a ghost of a memory, a fleeting thought that keeps repeating over and over: <em>not again. Do it different this time.</em> She doesn't know what it means, but Grace has always lived by her instincts. She went to New York, instead of California, for school. Took the job at the bar, instead of the one at the restaurant. Everything in her life has led her here, to this moment, a frame of time she somehow knows she was meant to be in.</p><p>"What about Alex and Olivia?" Daniel asks, forlornly. "If he's not going to warn her - "</p><p>"We will," Grace says firmly. "We'll figure it out."</p><p>"You know, it's weird," Daniel says, "how reassuring it is when you say that. Even though I know you don't have any better idea what to do than I do."</p><p>"Because I'm smarter than you," Grace says easily.</p><p>"Oh, right."</p><p>"First thing that needs to go are the cars."</p><p>Daniel groans, laying his head face down on the table. Grace pats his head a couple times, sympathetic, but unyielding.</p><p>"Do you have any life skills?" Grace asks. "Other than rich person jobs. Like investing, or whatever it is that you do. That doesn't count."</p><p>"I'm excellent at oral sex," Daniel offers.</p><p>"Okay, well, I appreciate that about you, believe me," Grace says, "but I don't share, and it's a bit self-defeating to charge <em>me.</em> Don't you think?"</p><p>"Maybe I could teach classes," Daniel says. "Do a TED Talk."</p><p>"You're thinking like a rich person again."</p><p>Daniel rubs his chin. "Waiter-ing?" he says, and it sounds like a guess. "Cleaning? The janitorial fields? I can mop things. Maybe."</p><p>Grace bites back a smile, determined to look unimpressed.</p><p>"Accountant," Daniel announces, with an air of confidence that he certainly hasn't earned. "Do people still use those? I did go to college, you know. A decade or two ago."</p><p>"We're going to workshop this," Grace decides, and pulls him closer by his collar. "Kiss me, rich boy."</p><p>He does. Grace smiles into it, feeling something very close to optimism blooming in her chest, like a hopeful flower. Optimism-adjacent, perhaps. Hard not to feel a bit cheerful when there's a man with wide hands and a warm regard, holding you close, promising to give up his ill-gained riches for you.</p><p>"Grace," Daniel murmurs, touching their noses together gently. Most of the things Daniel says have an air of irony, except for the moments when he's touching her, at which point he goes soft and pliable, like warm taffy. Grace has visions suddenly of dingy studio apartments, shabby cabins in the middle of nowhere, a bed with Goodwill sheets and Daniel wrapped up in the middle, soft-eyed and quiet in the middle of the night. "I feel like you saved my life already. I felt like that the moment I saw you. Isn't that fucked up?"</p><p>"So fucked up," Grace agrees, opening her mouth to tug at his lower lip with her teeth.</p><p>"Do I deserve you?" Daniel says, holding her face still in both hands, so he can kiss the arch of her nose, the curve of her cheek, the dip above her chin and below her lower lip. Grace closes her eyes and feels cherished, thinks to herself: <em>oh, it'll be worth it. I know it will be.</em> "The kind of man I am? Do I deserve a woman like you?"</p><p>"I mean," Grace says.</p><p>"It's rhetorical. Obviously," Daniel says, kissing each eyelid, one by one.</p><p>"I don't think that's how it works," Grace says. <em>I am not above choice,</em> she thinks, with a vague thought that maybe she'd dreamed that, last night. "I think you have me because I'm here, and that's all. Luck, or fate, whatever you want to call it. I think we're both here because we played it smart, and that's why we're going to be okay, Daniel. Because we make the right moves, and because we're good people." She shakes him, opening her eyes to meet his. He's staring at her, almost stricken, eyes wide in his face. "We are. You are. I can feel it."</p><p>"That's fucked up," he says distantly.</p><p>"Yeah." She leans in to kiss him again, lingering on the soft angle of his bottom lip, running her tongue along its curve, shivering a little at the feeling of his breath against her cheek. "Hey, Daniel."</p><p>"Mm," he says, nuzzling the side of her face.</p><p>"Can I call you 'Danny?'"</p><p>"Grace, I would rather die," Daniel says.</p><p>She smirks, tugging him a little closer, hitching her knees up into his lap. It feels like she already owns him, the way he goes weak in her grip. It feels like something she already had. "Just checking."</p><p> </p><p> </p><p> </p><p> </p><p> </p><p> </p><p> </p><p> </p><p> </p><p> </p><p> </p><p> </p>
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    <span class="small">It was all very careless and confused. They were careless people, Tom and Daisy—they smashed up things and creatures and then retreated back into their money or their vast carelessness, or whatever it was that kept them together, and let other people clean up the mess they had made.</span>
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  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>
  <span class="small">Title/epigraph is from <em>The Great Gatsby.</em></span>
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